


Down the Road (To Where I Must Go)

by slinden



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Action/Adventure, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Eventual Romance, First Time, Jedi Ben Solo, Jedi Rey, Oral Sex, Various prequels references, making it up as I go
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-23
Updated: 2019-02-17
Packaged: 2019-09-25 18:53:25
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 24,451
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17126855
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/slinden/pseuds/slinden
Summary: Anakin Skywalker never fell from grace and the Empire never rose. Ben Solo, newly knighted and frustrated, finds a new reason to trust in the Force: a girl named Rey. But darkness has always haunted his family. What will he do when he feels it start to rise within him, threatening everything he's fought for, including his relationship with his Padawan? A Jedi Ben Solo AU.





	1. Chapter 1

 

His grandfather’s teacup rattled as he set it down and Ben Solo sat up straighter. He had done it on purpose; he wasn’t paying attention.

“Tell me about your mission again,” Anakin Skywalker, Master Jedi, sat back and adjusted his robes. Grey-haired and clean-shaven, the older man usually calmed him, but now he was challenging Ben’s already agitated mind. “Where are they sending you?”

Ben sighed, glancing at his cold cup of forgotten chai. He’d drifted off into clouded daydreams again, losing himself easily in anyplace that wasn’t the Jedi Temple. His grandfather’s sitting room was filled with the evening light of Coruscant, reflecting dully on the warm interior. The sun set at the same time everyday, year round. It was incredibly frustrating. “You were at the council session. You heard what they said.”

“Well, I wasn’t listening,” Anakin winked. “Humour an old man.”

Folding his arms across his chest, Ben slouched down again. Anakin was one of the few Jedi, if not people, that he could truly be himself around. It was only in the recent years that he had become more guarded and distracted. When had that happened? He studied his grandfather and shook his head, searching for excuses.

This would be his first solo mission since his knighting, and that had been endlessly delayed until he was nearly to the point of leaving the Order. He’d even threatened it in a moment of rashness, a month before his knighting, gritting his teeth at his master and throwing patience aside like the broken tool that it was. The Force had quieted to him by then, pushing him aside like he was worthless and it burnt viciously before he learnt to push it aside and hide his true thoughts. He was stronger than half of the council; they didn’t see through his bluff.

His parents hadn’t helped and his uncle had been even worse. Luke had just pursed his lips whenever he asked why he wasn’t ready for the trials. He had felt ready for years, but both Luke and his master had conspired against him. Han had rolled his eyes and rambled about space wizards; Leia had tried to understand from her position in the senate, but her thoughts were more on politics than him. At times, Ben envied the children who didn’t know their parents and their bloodlines.

They were free.

Anakin always talked about pride and anger, snapping phrases that he had stolen from Obi-Wan, Qui-Gon, Yoda and Mace Windu; those old ghosts still haunted these halls and his grandfather’s mind. Ben knew that Anakin could read his discomfort in his eyes, but had almost stopped trying shortly after the knighting ceremony.

It was both comforting and disturbing.

“It’s standard negotiations,” he finally shrugged. “It’s pointless. They’re idiots for sending me there.”

Anakin sighed. “Don’t talk like that, Ben. Hubris is…”

“A path to the dark side,” he shot back, the frustration from the afternoon coming to a head. The words from the council still edged on his mind; the dull voices of men and women who claimed to be enlightened but refused to see the truth threatened to replay in his head. “I know.”

Anakin’s blue eyes firmed, coughing before straightening. “I’m on your side, you young _idiot_. I wanted you to take the trials two years ago. The council isn’t perfect, but they have their reasons. I’m old enough to know that now but I know how it feels to sit where you are. Talk to me, Ben. Your father isn’t here to argue for the sake of arguing.”

“You should still be on the council,” Ben frowned, ignoring most of what he’d said. “You’re not as…closed minded as they are.”

“Now you sound like Obi-Wan,” his grandfather grinned. “You’re right, but I didn’t have a choice to retire.”

Ben managed a small smile, but still didn’t feel calmer. The transport would leave early the next morning and he had hardly glanced at the mission documents. It was really a task that any junior knight could handle and that made him more angry than relieved when he drew the assignment. His talents as a Padawan were forgotten years ago; Master Falk had guided him through many highs and lows, but was always in the shadow of Luke and Anakin, not to mention Obi-Wan. There were still rumours that he was alive, but he disappeared from the Temple before Ben was born. Still, he had to hear about him all of the time. Falk had known him; his mother and father had too. Before he vanished, that’s when the name he bore surfaced. The last trace of the man was a transport docket bearing the name _Ben Kenobi_ that departed from Coruscant, but never met the destination.

Falk liked to repeat that story. He’d been one of the first knights to search for the old master. But like everything the old Twi’lek did and said, there was no satisfactory ending.

He was right to put distance between them the minute Ben had finished the trials.

And that had been a half a year ago.

Ben had seen his peers knighted and assigned missions and had sat waiting, seething as he hid the fact that the Force was waning, whispering less and less often to him. Part of his assessment had been his lack of patience and lack of connection to the living Force. It was like a knife to his heart as he replayed his failures.

“You’re a knight now,” Anakin sighed, adjusting his teacup. Again, he was brought back into the moment, reminding him that the hours were slowly ticking down until he had to leave. “We’re equals here. Why are you still thinking about the past like it can hurt you?”

“It took too long,” he stood quickly and took the tea set to the small kitchen in Anakin’s apartment. He recognized the design and knew that it matched cups in his grandmother’s home on Naboo. It had been too long since he’d seen her.

Anakin followed, slowly shuffling across the floor. When had he gotten so old? “You’re cursed, Ben. A Skywalker and a Solo. I hate to sound like Yoda, but learn you must.”

He was twenty-five. He knew he had a lot to learn, but it didn’t feel better to hear it now.

“Do you need help with this?” He motioned around the kitchen. Leftover pans from dinner still sat on the range and forgotten plates were piled in a state that made him hinge on anger. “I need to prepare for the mission, but I can…”

“It’s fine, Ben,” Anakin rested his hand on the counter, gripping it to stand up straighter. “Let me know how it goes when you get back. I need something to keep me occupied before Padmé comes back for the next session of the senate. Where are you going again?”

He met his grandfather’s eyes and felt the waves of calm he was trying to send him. It was meant to be reassuring but he still felt his frustration growing. “Jakku in the Western Reaches. It’s a meaningless conflict. I…the council is wrong about this. I can feel it.”

“Jakku…” Anakin sighed and nodded. “Well, watch out for the sand. I know that it gets everywhere.”

# -=-

 

Ben was cursing his grandfather for the third time as he emptied grit from his boots. The sun was high and angry and he couldn’t remember the last time that he was this hot. This was a miserable planet and a useless mission. The council hated him, he decided with the final shake of his boot. He tossed it on the ground and stuck his foot inside before turning to meet the eyes of the man waiting for him beside the moisture farm outcropping. The guide had looked at him with patience, but had seen him growing more and more angry as they trudged to the meeting point. His entire body itched and the sand seemed to be endless. No wonder his family avoided Tatooine.

“This village, we’ll have more luck,” Pratt said, dipping the wide brim of his hat, still trying to smile broadly. “You need better boots, Master Jedi.”

He glared, feeling more annoyed than he should at the light tones. “What makes you think that this meeting will be any better?”

Pratt shrugged. He was older than he was by a decade, but looked much older. A shorter human, his dirty blonde hair was smattered with strands of white. The teeth he was missing were either from fights in cantinas or disregard. Despite only skimming over the research about the state of affairs on Jakku, and their wish to be under the protectorate of the Republic, there was no central state apparatus. The application had come from poor junk traders and this mission was meaningless. Ben’s pride has instantly been shattered after the first meeting two days earlier. Now, they were trudging through the desert after the speeder broke down as a reminder that it was a lost cause. Night would mercifully come soon and he was promised food and shelter.

All he wanted to do was recall his transport and get back to Coruscant.

He’d bring his grandfather a bag of sand and throw it at him.

“It’s not much further, come,” Pratt lifted his head and gestured towards the small grouping of huts in the distance.

Ben shook his head and followed, wrapping his cloak around him despite the heat. At least he could be even more miserable.

The Force was a useless barrier to truly feeling alive.

He was going to give the council the angriest report that they’d ever seen. He was already picturing crafting it together as they approached the small cropping of huts. Ben pulled up his hood, determined to at least look the part, despite his disdain for the idiots on this backwater world.

A small party met them, led by an older woman with long, grayed hair. Two younger men flanked her, relief in their eyes at his presence. What could he really do for them? Their application was not even worth looking at. Settling these minor tribal disputes wouldn’t put them any higher on the list. There were far too many other _more-deserving_ worlds on the agenda of the Senate. Despite his mother’s best initiatives and misguided intentions, Jakku would never join the Republic.

“Master Jedi,” the older woman bowed. “Welcome to Palle.”

He nodded, pulling down his brown hood. Evening was coming and life was emerging from the small shanties. A fire had been started and he assumed that his arrival had triggered some sort of celebration.

“This is Ben Solo, Jedi knight,” Pratt spoke up.

“I’m Likata Tort,” the woman held her shoulders level to attempt to seem confident. “It was my work that got our motion to the Senate.”

He had to frown at that. “It needed more work.”

She tilted her aged head. “What do you mean, Knight Solo?”

“I can’t report anything positive back to the Jedi council or the Senate,” he tried to keep his face neutral, but he was tired, itchy, and over warm. “I can’t see any point in even submitting the motion.”

Likata looked to the two men at her sides and frowned, deeply. “Perhaps our meeting tomorrow morning will change that. Come, you need rest and refreshment. The journeys are always long here.”

He gave a short nod and followed her into the village, if one could call it that. He’d seen more people outside of a Coruscant nightclub, arguing about drink prices. Pratt disappeared as he was given a small hut of his own. Even the floor was riddled with sand; he exhaled through his nose as he kicked at it. He tossed his pack into the corner and heavily sat down on the small pallet on the floor. He shoved the threadbare sheets aside and punched the hard pillow. This was even worse than the last meeting place, but at least he didn’t need to share the room with Pratt. It was small, but his. His room back on Coruscant called to him as he leaned against the dry, wood wall.

This was pure misery.

He was being tortured first by the Force, second by the council, and thirdly by the Republic. His mother probably _made_ them select him for this mission to show him that we wasn’t ready to be a solo knight. He could imagine her cooking up the plan in her office, smiling at torturing her only son.

Rubbing the back of his neck, he shed his cloak and tried to shake the last of the sand from its edges. This was so beneath him. His anger at the council grew as he grabbed his datapad from his pack to update his notes. Whatever hope that this woman had, it was misguided.

Ben was in the middle of adding an angry note aimed at the misuse of resources when something stirred in his chest.

It was the smallest whisper, like the memory of a teardrop against his skin.

Slowly, he set the ‘pad aside, desperate for any distraction.

The feeling fluttered wildly, then faded.

Something, or someone, was reaching out through the Force.

It was finally _something_ that he could sink his teeth into.

Grabbing his cloak, he slipped out from the hut quietly into the darkness that had slipped around him without him realizing it. The people here were simple and he moved easily, carefully mindbluffing one of the young men that had accompanied Likata. He had been standing outside the door, but was easily pushed aside by the Force. There was something of a feast being prepared, smells and voices meeting his senses. He groaned internally at the fact that it was for him.

Not losing focus for once, he searched for the feeling, opening his mind to the Force.

In the distance, he felt a dull pulsing.

Ignoring the uncomfortable feeling of the sand against his boots, he left the outcropping of huts and moved towards a small grouping of caves in the distance, nestled in the sand and forgotten to anyone not looking for them. No one would miss him there. He was a sign of hope for them only because they were too dense to realize the truth of their situation.

There was no hope for Jakku.

He was a Jedi. And Jedi were not miracle workers.

He glanced down, noticing that another set of footsteps had followed the path that he had taken towards the glow of a fire in the caves. His hand fell on his lightsaber as he approached the entrance.

There was a fire, but no people. There were the hints that they had been there, but their presence was distant. He was left to search shadows instead of finding answers.

Entering the cave, he walked past the still-burning fire and continued into the darkness. He almost grinned at the prospect of danger, licking his lips and forgetting that he tasted only sand. He drew his blue-bladed lightsaber to light his way, still drawn by the even pulse of the feeling. He forgot how it felt to be called by Force. His blood seemed to get warmer with every step that took him towards the beacon in his mind; it was growing stronger, like the lights of a landing strip guiding him towards a clean touchdown.

He took another step on the rough terrain and clenched his hands around his saber. He cast his mind out and nearly smiled at the prospect of a fight; there were four beings further in the cave complex. Three of them were hostile, while one of them was the being who was calling to him.

Masking his presence, he slid down a sharp slope and then craned his head around the corner to peer into the now-lit alcove, deep in the cave.

His eyes burnt at what he saw when he glanced around the corner for a brief second before ducking back to hide.

There was a bloodied and bruised girl, lying prone on the cold cave floor.

The space was several metres wide, but high enough for him and his weapon.

He had tried to focus on the battle before him, but all he could think about was the girl.

She was naked and hardly breathing. Standing by her were three men, laughing and sharing swigs from a flask of strong alcohol in the dim light from a corner lantern. The smell burnt his nostrils as he assessed the scene again, digging deeper into their minds: the girl was their property. That’s what the Force told him. They’d bought her that morning from a junk trader, outside of a cantina. The scene rolled out for him and he sought her out in the ebb and flow of the Force, feeling her slipping in and out of consciousness just as both waves met. She was pushing against her own need to rest and forget with the desperate cry that she was putting out into the world.

And he had found her.

She was his now. She didn't belong to these awful men.

He gently brushed her mind. She was strong in the Force. If this _had_ been a Republic world, she would be a Padawan. Instead, she was being raped in a cave in the Western Reaches.

Maybe he had a duty to Jakku.

But now he had a duty to her.

When his mind touched hers, he nearly felt the breath being knocked from his chest. He caught the rush of images of what had happened to her the last weeks; these men were just the most recent horrors to her short existence. She’d been snatched up from a trading station and constantly beaten and drugged until she could hardly remember her own name. The vividness of the memories shook emotions that he would have to release into the Force later; he felt her violation as his own, letting the pain bite down around him. Being shoved into the dirt and being torn open in her most intimate places singed his mind. His hands clenched around his lightsaber as the men shared a deep and uniformed laugh.

It echoed until he couldn’t take it anymore.

Stepping around the corner, he pointed his blade at them without clearly reading if they had weapons. He didn’t care. He needed to taste a fight, for himself and for her. He had to ignore her low cries as he heard the men take uneven and confused breaths.

“This girl is not yours,” he commanded as the drunken heads tried to figure out what he was doing there. “You will leave this place without any trouble. Unless you want to fight me.”

Three confused looks met his sharp eyes.

“What?” The shortest and fattest of them coughed out. He caught the trail end of one of her memories and _knew_ that he was the last one inside her. The fat face was burnt in her memory, along with the throbbing pain of being used as a plaything for beasts. His hatred for that green-eyed man deepened into anger and he shifted his hands. Taking his lightsaber in his right hand, he took a stride forward to watch them and cast his eyes down at the girl.

“Get out of here,” he barked at them. Their drunk feet shuffled dully in the lowlight as they swayed under drink and the power of his mind.

He felt the girl’s mind growing faint and knew that he’d be wasting time if he killed them despite the fact that he wanted to.

He took one last step forward, the dull hum of the lightsaber overriding their idiotic ramblings.

With one final command, he struck out at their minds. “Leave. Now.”

The Force flooded their thoughts and the three idiots blinked in unison before stumbling by him to exit. He had to take many deep breaths to stop from turning and gutting them as they did.

Finally alone, he tried to shake the darkness and focus on the light that shone from the cave floor. He thumbed out his lit ‘saber and took the two short strides to kneel by the girl. He shed his cloak and wrapped her small body in it in the instant that his mind started to work again. All he saw before that was blood, bruises, and cuts. She was so small, so weak. But her hands bore the signs that she’d fought them. Her face told her story. No one gets punched in the face without asking for it.

Her hazel eyes blinked open, although one was almost swollen shut. Her breathing was shallow as he took her into his arms, cradling her to his chest. His mother had done this when he was upset as a child. That’s what he should do.

“Who are you?” Her voice was soft, but then she started coughing violently. “Where am I?”

“I’m a Jedi. And I’m here,” he said. “You shouldn’t talk. You’re hurt.”

“I felt you,” she mumbled, her head lagging against his shoulder. “I knew that you were coming.”

And then she faded, drawn into a tortured sleep. He finished wrapping his cloak around her and lifted her up, gritting his teeth. He carried her to the mouth of the cave and thankfully didn’t meet the monsters that had done this to her. Her body was pulsing with the Force and it washed over him like a warm breeze. Even when he was in the Jedi Temple, he hadn’t felt something like this before. His own body drank in the sensation, letting it guide him.

“What’s your name?” He asked, clutching her closer, trying to wake her. “What can I call you?”

“Rey,” the name emerged from her lips like a distant whisper.

“I’m Ben.”

Her head fell against his chest again. “It’s nice to meet you, Ben.”

She was unconscious the entire walk back to the village. Likata gasped when he emerged from the darkness, holding a torn and broken girl in his arms. She didn’t protest when he scowled at her and brought Rey into his small hut. She needed medical care and there was no one else on this useless world that had proper training. They brought facsimiles of what he asked for; there was no bacta. Only warm water and cloths. At least they had clothing for his girl.

She was hardly a teenager; no one should be like this.

Memories of his grandfather’s tales of life as a slave crept at the edges of his mind as he took a long, slow breath inside of his hut.

Laying her down on his bunk, he paused for a long moment before he partially removed his cloak and took in her injuries without looking at the private parts of her body. For now, it was legs, arms and face. Most of wounds were fresh and if healed in time, the scars wouldn’t last. Part of him had hope for her future if this hadn’t gone on for too long.

For a brief second, he caught the echo of a future on the edge of his mind.

It had been so long since the Force had spoken to him like this.

Kneeling, he tried to be clinical in how his eyes darted over her body. Gently pushing aside some of his cloak, he hissed at what he saw. Sharp hip bones jutted out from her malnourished form and he seethed.

This was his task now. His fingers brushed the surface of the basin as he glanced down at the full clay pot. It felt right. The Force wanted this. He dipped the first cloth into the warm water and gently started cleansing the unconscious girl’s body. He wiped down her arms to her hands, noticing torn and bleeding nails. He frowned, trying to get the dirt and blood out from her palms. From one set of limbs to the next, her legs were bruised and her knees were scraped and bleeding. The edges of torn, pink flesh met his eyes as he washed her skin, pursing his lips in constrained rage. He placed bandages on both knees, wanting to return to proper care on Coruscant as soon as he could. The worst parts he pushed at lightly with the Force, searching for deeper and worse injuries.

There were no broken bones, but her mind would take time to heal. There was tearing internally and he grit his teeth.

He had to heal her. He had to help her.

Sitting up, he shifted to touch her cheek. A single stain of a tear had cleaned a sorrowful path down to her jaw. Ben carefully washed her face, revealing more delicate, tanned, and freckled skin along with pale, rose-coloured lips. Her brown hair was matted with blood, but he was careful to run his hand through it once he’d cleansed most of it.

No one would call him a kind person. He lacked Jedi serenity most of the time, and he didn’t have the warmth of most of the code breakers. But just touching her damp hair and stroking her warm face made him realize why so many struggled to follow the rigid rules of the Jedi. He mostly rejected it out of spite, but feelings—real feelings—were something that he didn’t understand.

“What happened to you?” He asked, knowing the answer.

He studied her sleeping face, not wanting to do what was left to be done.

Inhaling deeply and dipping a new warm cloth again into the now bloodied water, he lifted more of his cloak from her body. Her small breasts were riddled with fresh bite marks and his hatred for the men that did this rose further in his chest. He should have killed them. He was going to kill them tomorrow.

He washed the wounds as methodically as he could, He tried to ignore how the tones of her nipples matched her mouth, once he washed away the dirt and semen from her breasts. He was a Jedi. This girl was broken and destroyed. There was nothing sexual about this.

The thought steadied him as he carefully cleansed her of her trauma.

The last step was her nether parts. Wincing, he saw the small pool of blood that had gathered between her legs on his pallet and had to bite the inside of his mouth again. The dark side was tempting him into full rage at the pain she had been caused as he spread her unconscious legs and tried to do his best to remove the horrors of those men from her body. Resting his hand on her smooth stomach, he sent a focused healing touch through the Force to reach inside of her; they’d violated her vagina and anus and he was the only one who could help her. Now, he was regretting only half-caring about the healing lessons that had been pressed upon him at the Temple. Her sex was only lightly haired, but the small curls were damp with dried blood; he couldn’t tell if it was hers or not. Breathing steadily, he had to press harder on her mind with the Force to keep her from waking as he washed her entrances, forcing himself to be serene in his task. He could sense the pain radiating from her sleeping mind. He didn’t want her to think that he was like them so she needed to not feel this. Lifting her lightly to cleanse her backside, he noticed again how little she weighed.

His task done, he stood. Wiping his hands on his tunic, he glared around his small hut.

The Force had brought them together. He felt a peace settle around him that he thought was lost in the frustration of his knighting.

The ground felt firmer and the air tasted sweeter.

Her scent was no longer tainted by the drunks from the cave. Now, she wore his hands as perfume.

But beyond the tangible, there was the Force. She swam in it like a twig in the ocean, unguided and lost.

And he’d snatched her up, into his determined but admittedly clumsy hands.

He’d given himself to the Force, bound by the Jedi code. He’d poured his thoughts and feelings into it and rarely heard anything but a whisper in return this past year. It burnt at him; his grandfather was the strongest Jedi ever, and Ben was only a pebble at the base of a mountain he’d never be able to climb.

This girl and her power, this was his chance.

She whined lightly, starting to fight against him. He needed to be quick now.

His hands were still shaking as he dressed her in the clothing that had been given to him. The tunic was too long and the leggings were too large; she swam in the clothes. Her body was limp but clean now, warm and safe. She was so small and soft and her face, although scratched and bruised, was quietly beautiful. He lightly healed the wound to her face, bringing down the swelling. She could at least see now as he let go of his hold on her.

She awoke in an instant when he released his grip on her mind. Her eyes were fierce as she touched her now-clothed body with rapid hands, glaring at him when her face shot up.

After a half minute of just listening to their hearts beat, she spoke.

“Where am I?”

“The village,” he answered. “I brought you here.”

Her eyes were dark in the dim hut. The only light came from the bonfire outside the window.

Her face slowly transformed from fight to sadness as she took in the water basin beside the bed and the water-soaked state of the sleeves of his tunic. She shook, drawing her knees up to her chin.

“You saved me,” she gasped. “You found me.”

“Yes, I found you,” he replied, not wanting to hear silence again, but didn’t move from where he stood. “And I’m going to take you away from this place and the men who did this to you.”

Her lips trembled and he saw tears forming. He couldn’t remember the last time that he’d seen someone truly cry and shifted his weight. He steadied his face and extended his hand, not knowing what else to do. He stepped closer, leaning down towards her on his pallet. Slowly, she lifted her hand to put into his. Her skin was soft, despite its state. He had to draw on every ounce of strength to steady his emotions. He stretched out a sense of calm, wanting to draw her into comfort instead of pain.

“Will you protect me?” She asked, studying his eyes as her hand slipped from his.

“Forever,” he said instantly, forgetting the patience that the Jedi insisted on in an instance. “I promise.”

She blinked, tears slipping down her cheeks. “Can I stay here?”

“You’re in my bed,” his voice was too firm and he cleared his throat before speaking again. “You’re staying here.”

She almost smiled, wiping her eyes with the sleeve of the tunic that he had slipped over her sleeping shoulders. “Stay with me, Ben.”

“Are you hungry?” He asked, trying not to think about sleeping next to the poor girl. “There’s…food.”

“Tomorrow,” she mumbled. “I need to sleep.”

She rolled over, curling up in the corner of his pallet. He stood, taking four deep breaths before shedding his boots and outer tunic. As gently as he could, he moved his much larger frame to the floor. Settling beside her, he dared to reach for her. She instantly rolled over, drawing herself next to him to rest on his chest before he could breathe.

“You saved me, Jedi,” she mumbled into his tunic. He heard her moistening her lips, amazed that she could speak after everything that had happened to her.

“I did,” he answered, daring to rest his hand on her head.

She jerked slightly at the touch, eyes flaring wildly as she backed away. He fought for calm, needing her to trust him.

He reached out again, slower this time, cradling her face in his hand.

Her lips parted and she nodded, letting her eyes close as she settled against him again. He felt her pulse quicken as she fought against her reactions to him. He knew that she wanted to pull away but was straining for comfort. He reached out with the Force to draw the light blanket over them, extending the power to calm her shaking nerves. She sighed and he felt a careful brush of her mind against his.

Already, she was learning.

“Goodnight, Rey.”

“Goodnight, Ben.”

Sleep was hard to find for him that night.

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Four years later, Ben and Rey try to fight against a coming mission that will pull Ben away from Rey and her duties at the temple.

**Four Years Later**

 

Rey Kenobi entered the apartment and immediately tossed the datapad across the room with an angry grunt.

It didn’t surprise her when her master froze the pad mid-air, stopping it from hitting the opposite wall and then letting it drop unharmed to the floor. He slowly looked up from his spot on the couch and smirked at her.

“Is it astrophysics again?” Ben asked, hardly sitting up.

Rey sighed and slouched out of her cloak. “Master Ta’an is impossible. If I _know_ the apparent magnitude of the star why do I _have_ to show how I calculated it? Can’t I just _know_?”

She kicked off her boots and left them where they fell next to her cloak, crossing the floor to slump on the couch. Rey instantly laid down, letting her head land hard on her master’s lap. She frowned up at him as he tried to hide his smile. He knew how much she hated this course and thought that it was funny to push her to the limit.

This had been their dynamic the last two weeks, since the start of the dreaded upper-level astrophysics course. She was the youngest Padawan in the class and she had fought hard to get a placement, arguing with teachers in the hallways and snapping out previous lessons like doctrine. She was determined to advance to solo piloting and needed to get this last step out of the way to be officially sanctioned to do so.

Ben would let her pilot on missions, but always hid it in the reports. There had been few chances to do so, but he still let her without regret. It always set her blood on fire. He was the best master in the temple and she was always trying to make it up to him.

She sighed again as he stroked her hair, the feeling tingling her to the core. She’d been permitted to grow out the awful haircut in the last month for her upcoming rotation as a senate page. She’d be there to learn protocol, patience, and responsibility. Showing up looking like a Jedi spy didn’t work for every delegation, so she was already suspicious of whom she’d be placed with.

“You’ll get through it,” he said as he wound his hand around her thin braid. “I managed to.”

“Didn’t you cheat?” She raised an eyebrow.

“It wasn’t cheating. It was a loophole.”

She pouted and he shook his head.

“I won’t tell you how I did it,” he replied. “For the last time.”

“I don’t like being told I’m not good at something.”

He’d been side-glancing at his datapad and finally set it aside, forcing her to sit up.

“I don’t like it either, but damaged pride won’t get us anywhere.” He was starting to use his Master voice and it meant for Rey to listen. She’d rarely heard it, unless he was being mock-serious in front of others, especially the council. “Master Ta’an doesn’t like nineteen-year-old Padawans showing him that formulas don’t matter.”

She wanted to argue, but swallowed it. Part of this reminded her of her rocky start at the Temple. She’d mostly followed in Ben’s shadow, wide-eyed and confused at every turn, only pretending that she understood what ancient and powerful beings were saying about her. They never talked to her, but Ben did. He’d make them address her and quarrel endlessly that she needed to be trained and that she was his. That was the part that made her feel safe in this strange, clean, but otherwise dull place. That was what pushed her to choose the legendary Jedi name as her own. She had no last name to claim; it was easy with her tones and sandy legacy to take Obi-Wan’s as her own. It was another thing that tied her to Ben and she wore it with pride during her initiation ceremony.

“It’s like negotiating,” she answered, feeling her earlier anger fade. “I can’t prove my point without understanding his.”

His reply was a half smile and a nod. With another sigh, she drew her datapad to her and rested again on his lap, needing the contact to ground her in her studying. He didn’t object and instead returned to reading whatever mission report she’d interrupted. One of his hands was on his ‘pad and the other returned to her hair; he seemed to like her nearly shoulder-length hair.

They were the strangest Master-Padawan pair in the Temple and they both thrived on their status as rebels, from her perspective at least.

It had taken his grandfather’s intervention to allow her to be trained. She began to look up to Anakin as her own grandfather since then, taking long lunches with him at his apartment or in the gardens. The older Jedi would talk about his days as a slave and his similar rescue by a mysterious Jedi from a desert world. He never asked her questions, not like her classmates or training partners. He would instead listen to vague stories and offer simple advice, both about life and missions.

Then there was Ben.

She glanced up from her pad and studied his intent brown eyes set in an angular face, focused on what he was reading.

He had saved her in so many ways. And from the Temple gossip that found the way to her ears, she’d saved him too.

“Focus.”

His deep voice made her eyes snap back to memorizing formulas. He’d sensed her drifting and poked her with his forefinger in the dip of her tunic. His hand shifted to rest on her shoulder and she sighed at the touch.

She knew that the council disagreed with how physical they were. There were many embraces after sparring or sitting too close during shared meals. She knew there were still Padawans who were Ben’s age and she could almost best them in sparring. Combined with their close age difference, for Master and Padawan, it all caused more rumours. Anakin would just smirk when she complained about it, hiding behind his own secrets. Ben, determined to punish anyone who doubted him and his family, would enjoy the glares from senior council members and colleagues alike. When they were on the few missions they had been given over the years, they would put on the serene visage of Jedi calm and coldness. He didn’t want them to be fully pulled out of active duty.

She felt guilty about her lack of experience costing them missions. It always hung over her as she tried to blaze through lessons and training, only to be curtailed like this because of her stubbornness.

Sighing, she finally pushed herself to sit up, a dull duty throbbing at the back of her mind that she needed to fulfill. “You have a council meeting before noon meal.”

He glanced away from his ‘pad, looking instantly annoyed. “Thanks for reminding me.”

Shifting to stand, he stretched and she held back a sigh as she studied him rolling his shoulders. They were broad and strong and reminded her constantly of her rescue from her attackers, like a mystic hero who should have vanished rather than stayed. Maybe the council was right, for once, and their frequent touching was a dangerous thing.

The crush that had landed hard in her chest for her master in the first few weeks had slowly blossomed into something more over the years. He was everything to her, despite his openly darker sides. At the Temple, she had never met anyone like him so she drank in everything that was Ben Solo. He could be moody and bitter, picking and choosing which part of the Jedi code to follow at whim, while still making her toe the line. She was training and giving him balance. Their connection through the Force made it hard for her to part it from her heart.

“I have something for you.” He turned and her eyes had to shift rapidly to his face.

She stood and watched him move to their small kitchenette, pulling out a small silk bag from one of the cupboards. Tilting her head, she crossed the floor to accept the small gift from his waiting hand.

“Why are you giving me a present?”

He smirked. “It’s just something I found that I thought you should have.”

She weighed the bag in her hands and grinned at him as she loosened the tie. It was a small, glittering black stone. It was smooth in her hand, red bands of ore crossing through the oval stone. It was warm against her skin and made her smile widen. But a small pang across their bond made her frown.

“You’re going on a mission without me, aren’t you?”

He bit his lip and nodded. “It won’t be for long. And it’s going to bore me to death. You have your courses and your senate work coming up. The council…it was their decision.”

She held the stone to her chest and looked up with a light exhale, searching for her centre and trying not to lead this into another argument. “It’s my fault we don’t go on more missions.”

“Yes, you’re the _reason_ that we aren’t given more missions. But there’s no fault in being inexperienced.” He leaned against the kitchen table and firmed his face. She could feel him attempting to calm her and she fought against it.

Rey exhaled and shook her head. “Anakin told me about how much you resented not being given missions when you were knighted. Why can’t I feel the same? We should be in the field, not here, being forced to learn formulas.”

“Anakin doesn’t know everything about me.” He narrowed his eyes, daring her to keep going. “He just thinks he does.”

She bit her lip and dropped her eyes. “But you do miss it.”

He gently reached up to cup her face, making her look up again. Her heartbeat quickened and she tried to hide how her hand wanted to reach for him in turn. Instead, she kept her arms glued to her side.

“I do, but I don’t blame you,” he said as he lightly brushed her cheek. “I’ve got to go. We’ll talk about this after noon meal.”

He left her alone in the kitchen, retrieving his cloak and boots without another word. He parted with a nod and left her to sigh to herself.

She needed to meditate. She needed to spar. She needed to talk to Anakin.

After gathering up her things, she decided that she’d convince the older master to do all three.

 

-=-

 

Ben gritted his teeth and nearly punched the outside of the door when he left their apartment. The only thing keeping him from doing so was knowing that Rey would hear it and confront him about it.

This last half year had driven him nearly to breaking the peace he’d found when she came into his life. He was driven with a pure purpose in the beginning, convincing the Jedi council to let her be trained and let him be her master. He felt vindicated for every wrong that he’d done the second he got to wind her Padawan braid and watch her face glow with fulfillment. His heart had beat faster the first time she took up a lightsaber and nearly bested a Padawan her own age, but with already fifteen years of training. That was the first time he broke protocol and let her leap into his arms and celebrate her pure skill. Since then, he let the touches and the embraces continue, thumbing his nose at the council who wanted to deny her of her right as a Jedi. Her birthplace shouldn’t prevent her from getting what the galaxy owed her; Anakin had set the precedence and the Skywalker family stood behind him in supporting the decision. Training her, teaching her, watching her grow…everything had made him push away his personal struggles and emotions.

But just like everything that brought him focus, it was bound to come to an end at some point. With the strength of their bond, he’d hoped that it would at least last until her knighting. Now, he was having a hard time faking normal. It wasn’t fair to her and was hard on his senses. But the hardest part was that she was the only one who he could talk to about it, but couldn’t bring himself to take up the topic.

She was right. He yearned for missions. He had had so few before her that he felt inherently deprived; his own words rattled at his mind that it wasn’t her fault, not matter how much he tried to deny it. He missed having challenges that didn’t involve convincing her to study something that he _knew_ was important but also regarded as important for someone other than him to learn.

Sighing, he adjusted his robe and started towards the council chambers. He had put on his best face for her and now he could be brooding and bitter. The council expected it so he didn’t want to let them down.

They both could easily leave the order. She was more practiced in faking serenity than holding it firmly in her grasp. He had taught her wrong and that added to his list of personal failings. But he still refused to let anyone know that he was struggling. For all she knew, he was just frustrated about the lack of missions.

He cared about her too much to let it go on.

That was part of the reason why he requested a simple, solo mission that coincided with a bulk of her other lessons.

His feet had guided him to the council antechamber without active thought and he shook his head in surprise when the council assistant cleared her throat.

“You’re early, Knight Solo.”

“I can wait.”

He eyed the Twi’lek woman and she gave him a short nod as he went to stare at the bare antechamber.

Holding her and touching her had been so much easier until her body had become her own. Having her head rest in his lap at sixteen was still caressing a girl still recovering from being tormented and abused. At seventeen, it had been taming her passion for excelling so quickly. She had quickly surpassed her peers even at her own age; she was going beyond other Padawans, earning bullies and jealously. It was only her careful grip on her emotions and scavenger attitude that kept her balanced and without being filled with pride; she could piece together a solution without following the rules. Part of that made him infinitely proud, while the other part made him realize how she was holding herself back. He didn’t know how to be firm with her and the time had come. How could he be angry without it hurting her?

Folding his hands behind his back, he looked out at Coruscant midday. Ships coursed by in neat lines, calm and orderly, performing everyday tasks without question. This was the height of society. His heart always quickened when he saw a ship waver out of its lane, a hint at the inherent disorder of the universe.

His biggest problem with Rey had started four years ago and hadn’t become a real issue until now. She’d slept in his bed every night since her arrival at the Temple. On Jakku, on the transport back, fine, he could accept it. But during the time between being granted the right to train her and being assigned proper quarters, their inherent bond had drawn her to his quarters. He’d easily let her cuddle against him, still shedding tears from night terrors and needing to build their bond. Since then, moving into a Master-Padawan suite, her room was only for studying or to cool down from an argument.

Then her body started to grow and change, getting taller at first and then filling out. Toned from training, her firm arms would latch against him at night. He’d have to fight against shifting during sleep, afraid of touching her in anyway that might make her uncomfortable. No amount of mediating during the day would make it all go away. It only kept it at bay. It was never boring, but beyond frustrating.

It was his duty as a master not to fall into attraction. It was so much easy during the day, but the nights were getting harder.

Closing his eyes, he searched through their bond to make certain that she hadn’t felt him wavering. She hadn’t. She was heading up the lift to Anakin’s, clenching her teeth in anger that he was keeping things from her.

Had he meant to kiss her in the kitchen? No. It was more to test her. Again, he was being unfair.

The rotation in the Senate would be good for her. She’d meet normal people for the first time since being brought to the Temple. Well, as normal as the Senate got. He inwardly groaned at his memories of following after his mother, split between Alderaan and Naboo and her common interests between her mother and Bail Organa and their political faction.

“Knight Solo?”

The attendant called. He automatically wanted to correct her to _Master_ Solo but Rey was nowhere near being able to pass the trials. It was his own pride wanting to snap, not his own voice.

He turned and gave her a light bow.

“Your presence is requested before the Jedi Council.”

Throwing on a mask of calm, he entered the snake pit.

 

-=-

 

They hardly spoke during evening meal. Ben tried to keep the conversation focused on the practicalities of the mission and Rey’s duties over the three weeks that the mission would take. Her eyes would switch from acceptance to betrayal, then to dull sadness in a matter of minutes, only poking at her food. They’d sparred in the afternoon, to the point of sweating and tired muscles, and she should be starving. Instead she was only pretending to eat. That made two of them.

They cleared the table in silence. He’d leave tomorrow. She had looked the most shocked when he told her that, swallowing and then nodding.

Instead of speaking again, he gently took her arm and led her to the sitting room for meditation. She’d never been alone for this long before. It was pressing on their bond like a dull knife, unable to pierce their dull adherence to Jedi teachings.

The council had been right in his dressing down that afternoon. Tekka had been harsh in his words, despite his calm voice. His Padawan needed to focus and if it took sending him to watch a nearly month-long wedding ceremony between warring tribes on a planet seeking Republic admittance, so be it.

She knelt across from him, slowly shaking from his hand.

“I’m not happy about this,” she said, frowning at his knees.

“You need to focus. Without me, it will be easier,” he answered, coolly. “If you don’t believe me, you can check with the council standard.”

“No, Master, I believe you.” She glanced up, then her eyes fell again. “It’s just so long.”

He shook his head, trying to wind the conversation towards meditating. He was only meeting resistance from her restless mind. “You need to focus now, Rey.”

She turned her head away, ignoring his hand brushing her knee. “You’re still going to leave tomorrow.”

“Hey,” he said, tapping her leg. She finally turned to face his eyes. “What are you feeling?”

“From the Force or…?”

“Both.”

She shrugged. “I don’t feel anything about the mission, Master. I don’t sense anything. I think that it’s…clouded. I’m…I don’t want you to go.”

He sat back, straightening his shoulders. “This is why you need to be alone. You can’t focus.”

“No,” she nearly whined. This wasn’t like her. What had Anakin told her that afternoon? He should comm the old man right now and get answers. “But…maybe.”

He gave her a soft look and she finally nodded, joining him in meditation. It was a simple exercise, meant to collect the emotions and memories from the day and let them go into the Force. They both had much to release and were nearly exhausted when they both exhaled simultaneously. The betraying chrono in the kitchen told them they’d been in the trance for over two hours.

“Maybe…maybe it’s good to be alone,” she gave him a small grin. “I’ll be busy with the Senate.”

He skillfully rose to his feet and brought her up with him. She squeezed his hands and he finally smiled at her.

“They will keep you busy,” he said. “I know they will.”

She tidied in the kitchen as he changed for bed, trying to ignore how her dimples made his heart shudder. It was a simple mission and there would be no need for long goodbyes: observe the wedding and track down a minor disturbance in the Force. It had come through in a report from the betrothal ceremony. The knight who had witnessed it had been delayed in writing up his report. It was a whisper of darkness that needed to be followed up. Since the near fatal incident with Palpatine, the Jedi couldn’t be passive, although they had been so long ago. Anakin’s scars still bore that man’s hatred and he still walked the halls, reminding everyone of how it could have been. If he went alone, it wouldn’t put pressure on the darkness. Clues could be gathered in near stealth, under the guise of observation. He didn’t tell Rey about that part of the mission, afraid that she would worry.

He was changed and ready for bed, reading through the mission report again when she turned off the lights to the rest of the apartment. He ignored the sounds she made while changing and using the fresher before she slipped into his room. In the dim light from the bedside lamp, he raised an eyebrow at her nightclothes.

“Is that new?”

She shrugged in the long tunic. It hung below her knees and was a soft shade of blue.

“Anakin gave it to me.”

“Another present,” he managed to say with a smirk.

She crawled under the covers, glancing at his datapad.

“You never prepare this much for a mission.”

He brushed his hand down her shoulder, pulling her closer. He had to pretend that this was okay even if it killed him. “You won’t be there. I actually need to read through it this time.”

She looked up with him with a bright grin as he set the ‘pad aside and switched off the light. He heard her shifting under the covers, moving to catch his eyes in the dull light from the closed blinds.

“I talked about you with Anakin again today,” she said, moving to nuzzle against his bare chest. “He told me to be patient, even if I hated it.”

He smoothed her hair, ignoring how her hand rested against his stomach, even with the light sheet separating her from meeting skin. “He’s right. You know me by now. I feel the same way.”

“I’ve known that for years,” she giggled. At least she wasn’t sad if she laughed, he told himself.

“You’ll be fine in the Senate.” He leaned over and let his lips brush her forehead. “You can always send Padmé or Leia a message if someone gives you a hard time.”

He actually heard her sigh at the light kiss and it made his body still. She was his Padawan and should not be in his bed anyway. Then again, the council just needed to push him in a certain way and he’d pack them both up and leave. If it wasn’t for his desire to see her knighted, he’d do it for any minor slight.

He felt her push away and sit up, forcing him to turn towards her.

“I shouldn’t need your family to handle this,” she mumbled, drawing her knees up to her chin like she did when she was a teenager; hells, she _was_ still a teenager.

She shouldn’t look so vulnerably beautiful and young in his bed. She should be in her own bed, sleeping already. But he wasn’t like another other Master in the Temple and he had put himself in this position.

He sighed, slipping his arm around her as he rested against the bed frame. Her shoulder-length hair brushed his shoulder as she rested against him again. He was going to petition the council to allow her to keep her hair longer. He’d find another loophole; Anakin would help him.

“Rey,” he forced himself to use his Master voice, even though they both hated it. He knew that he did and he detested seeing her straighten and cringe when his voice dipped. She lifted her head to sigh at him. “You have come so far in a short amount of time. I didn’t do the Senate rotation until I was twenty.”

“That wasn’t that long ago,” she said with a shy voice as she turned away to study her feet underneath the bed sheets.

“I was never the best Padawan.”

“I’m not winning Padawan of the year anytime soon.”

“You could,” he teased. “If there was a category for who hates Master Ta’an the most.”

“Oh, come on.” Her head snapped back, suddenly grinning again. “You should _see_ the senior Padawans struggling. They hate that course and hate me for understanding without really doing anything.”

This was how he wanted to spend the last night together before he left. He wanted her to be in a good mood and almost over confident. She deserved to bask in her talent and he needed to leave her to let her see it.

“Just show him what you can do.” He felt playful and caught her braid in his hand, playing down the weave to where his hair wound with hers to start it. He thought that she must be self-conscious about how short her braid was compared to the others in her age class. She would grumble once a month as he helped her fix the new length with the old hair. Gradually, his dark hair was fading from her sandy blonde. Soon, it would be gone.

“If you believe in me, I can do anything.” She tilted her head and eyed his hand, still twirling her braid. She smiled at him again. “It’s going to look awful if you keep doing that.”

“Mine always looked bad too.” He slowly withdrew his hand and sat up to mirror her pose, bringing his knees up towards his chest. She would be twenty before he was thirty. There was less than a decade between them. He didn’t envy the Jedi record keepers untangling their path. “I can never let anything go.”

An odd silence pressed between them and he felt a full tension rising as she wetted her lips and rested her chin against her knees.

“Sometimes I think that this is all a dream. Sometimes I think that I died in that cave.” Her hand drifted from her legs to smooth the bed sheet between them. Her fingers nearly brushed his foot and he steeled his eyes to resist reacting. “I want to be a knight, Ben. You’ve given me this gift and shown me that I’m not worthless. I hope that…”

He swallowed, fighting against his better judgement—really, when had he had good judgement—to take her hand and still it between them. “Hope what?”

“I hope that I’m as good for you as you have been for me.”

She lifted her chin and looked at him with half-closed eyes and he was lost.

His mouth met hers and she tasted like dull mint and warmth, the inside of her mouth soft and truly unkissed before him. Her hands shifted to his face with a desperate sigh, clutching at him as she shifted on top of him in an instant, hardly breaking the kiss. He needed to stop this. He needed to be in control. He was risking her knighthood. He was risking the mission and her future.

But he deepened the kiss and she moved onto his lap, spreading her legs to straddle him. He groaned instantly at the contact, taking in her soft mouth and gentle movements. This wasn’t stolen kisses in a cantina as a Padawan, letting some woman of the night fondle him. This wasn’t fucking a drunk handmaiden when his master wasn’t paying attention during a bonding ceremony between a princess and a lower lord. This wasn’t a rushed blowjob after his knighting by a senior knight who plucked him out from the party to defy the already softened Jedi celibacy rule. All of that, like taking in an older student, had fallen in line with Anakin’s path to the Jedi. Attachment was not the ultimate road to the darkside; letting it go unrequited was.

He pushed the sheet down and she lifted her body, temporarily leaving his mouth to moan as his hand brushed down her bare thigh.

When her mouth was back on his and her body started thrusting against him, he was instantly back in the cave on Jakuu. She had been violated. She had been hurt. He was still preying on a girl who couldn’t sleep alone because of the terrors that she’d seen.

And most of all, she was his student.

Still, his hands crept under her tunic to massage her ass as he deepened the kiss. She was strong but smooth, toned from training but also well cared for in the safety of the Temple. He knew this body. He'd held it every night for four years. Now he could explore it. His tongue traced the inside of her mouth until he found a spot that made her shudder.

He could feel their training bond drum in his ear: she only wanted him, she wanted him to make her feel safe, he’d made her feel clean once and she wanted that again. The thought that burst forth the most was how she didn’t want him to leave. She was afraid that he wouldn’t come back.

“Rey,” he gasped as he broke the kiss, leaning back. “I’m coming back.”

“I…” she managed to say. “I know you will.”

She leaned down to kiss him now and he leaned into it, losing himself in the sensations of her body. He let his hands drift up her waist to the edges of her tunic and she sat up, hazel eyes grinning as she watched him pull it off of her. She wasn’t wearing a breast wrap and his eyes could only fall on two things. She had been a woman a year ago and now she was inviting him to touch her.

As his hands hesitated, she took charge, driving her mouth against his to spread on top of him with gentle thrusts from her pelvis and soft ventures from her tongue. His body was reacting, his cock getting harder under her ministrations. He felt down to flick his thumbs under the corners of her light underwear and she pulled back, lightly panting.

“Ben,” she paused to give him a look that bled want through their bond. “I love you.”

His hands froze for a second at the words. He should have expected it, but didn’t. He knew everything about her, but had carefully avoided her feelings for him. But here they were. And he was leaving the next morning.

“I love you too.”

The words slipped so easily from his mouth that they only left the ghost of a meaning in his heart. His hands were pulling free her underwear as her eyes were shining from the declaration. In his heart, he did love her. As a student, as a person, as someone young and attractive…but his heart shuddered slightly at the light lie he had offered to her. His want had taken over his mouth in that moment. He wanted to love her, but was afraid of romantic love. He’d seen that drive Anakin and Padmé apart and his parents in kind. But there was something delicate in her hand that made him sure that what he had said wasn’t a lie.

She shimmied out of her clothes, shifting off of him to toss them across the room. She turned back with hungry eyes as he took in her firm, naked body, straddling him again.

Her hips lunged against his full hardness now, only a breath of fabric between them. He needed to stop this.

Still, he didn’t. Her hands found his sleep pants and gripped them, sliding down his body with them. He felt her kissing his legs as she moved and felt it all gathering heat in his loins. If he wasn’t inside her soon, he was going to lose his mind.

Her giggle as she settled beside him again brought him back to himself. Her hand had found his hardness and was starting to gently stroke him. He was fighting against both sides of him as he bent to kiss her again.

“Rey,” he breathed. “Gods, Rey.”

“I love you,” she gasped again, kissing him firmly and with more need, her hand swiping up to find the moisture of his precum to ease the friction. He gasped as her hand slid with ease up and down his shaft, making her words blossom in his heart. He felt nearly embarrassed as her hand explored his body. She was touching him with such need and patience that he drew back, wanting to give the illusion of true experience. They rarely talked about what she had felt and seen during the day. He’d only been in the brunt of the aftermath and heard her nighttime confessions, spreading her words into the darkness and hoping that they'd stay there.

He wanted to ask where the words were coming from but let the thought die on his lips; instead he send a wave of pure affection through their bond and felt her hand quicken and his body sagged into her. He brushed her mind again as he kissed her.

“You can touch me,” she mumbled. “I won’t break.”

“Mmm,” he mumbled, finding his hand to her hip. He traced down the sharp bone to her opening and heard her hold her breath, her hand stilling. He had the thought again that this was a bad idea but let his hand drift to the light hair to find her slit to touch her again for the first time in four years. This time, it wasn’t as a healer, but as something more.

She gasped as she lunged into his hand and he slightly paused the motion.

“We should stop,” he felt his voice breaking as his hand stilled. “I’ll…be back in three weeks.”

She kissed him lightly, shaking her head. “I’m worried that you won’t want me then.”

He was lying awkwardly on his other hand but tried to make his point known by brushing her clit with his thumb. She was wet and wanting, and it would be so easy to have her now and strengthen their bond. The temptation rose in his chest and he greedily let his misgivings fall into the Force like the clothes they’d forgotten.

He shifted on top of her, still stroking her folds, alternating sensations between his thumb on her clit to teasing her entrance. Her hands fell on his hips and her mouth was greedily pressing against his, like he would die tomorrow. He paused for a moment, taking in both her form and her mind. He had lived too long as a Jedi to fully lose focus on the Force. Through their bond, he didn’t feel any darkness in his future. She opened her mind to his as a glance and nodded. It was just her feelings that were drawing them into this.

“Rey,” he finally said, meeting her eyes. “I want to wait.”

Her eyes seemed to glass over before he had a chance to shake his head.

“But I can make you feel good.”

She shed a light tear and he caught it with his newly free hand.

“We’ll be together when I’m back.”

“Yes,” she purred as his mouth started to trace down her body, meeting the delicate ridge between her breasts while rubbing slow and steady circles around her clit. He could feel her thin hips wanting to lunge into his hand but he lightly pressed against them with the Force as his lips met one lightly rose-coloured nipple. He bit it, raising it to hardness, tasting it and suckling at how every part of her body gave a new sensation. She was so warm and soft. She needed to be loved gently and now was not the time for that. His mouth would have to do what the rest of his body wanted.

He circled small tongue strokes down the curve of her ribs, tasting the gentle sweat of training still lingering against her skin. It made it hard to keep going, feeling the warmth of her want against his chest, thrusting against him, as he drew his touches closer.

Nipping lightly on her taught skin, he shifted towards her navel, dipping his tongue into it with a well-earned moan as a reward. Her skin was pebbled with so much desperate need that it was hard to hold back how much he wanted her.

His chin met the light hair of her vagina and he quickly shifted to bury his head into her sweetness, parting her folds with his tongue in quick strikes. He knew full well that he was the first man that had shown her kindness and he wanted this to be soft and exactly what she wanted. He lifted his eyes, catching her watching him nudge her clit with his nose, swirling his tongue against her delicate folds.

“Gods, Ben,” she gasped, leaning back against his pillows.

As he tasted her, he was at war with himself. She was slightly sweet but also salty, but also clean and fresh. She would either share his bed the rest of his life or this was the biggest mistake of his life. But he’d already made so many of those, so he could take one more.

With the effort he put into everything, he dipped his tongue into her, tracing the parts that he had so carefully cleaned so many years ago. If the Council found out about this, he would gladly leave the order for this taste tomorrow.

Duty be damned, his girl needed him.

She gasped again as he shifted to settle his tongue on her clit, his fingers coming to softly enter her. She was so wet with her need for him that he didn’t expect her to tense when he thrust two into of her. His head snapped up at the sound that she made and his hand stilled.

Slowly, she looked down and with a glow of love through their bond, she told him to continue.

He had been too quick and clumsy, as usual.

Still, he pressed forward, this time with one finger, followed by its brother. Entering her made his cock start to strain at the feeling of touching the soft inner linings of her body. His mouth flicked and swirled around her clit and she squirmed at both sensations until he found the perfect rhythm. She giggled when she felt him use the Force to enhance the sensation, swirling soft circles of touches along with his physical touches, but easily accepted the sensation with a joyful noise. His fingers hooked inside her as he felt her nearing orgasm at his touches and she let out a beautiful moan as she clenched and came against his hand.

His hands stilled as he sat up. “You’re beautiful, Rey.”

“I love you so much, Ben.”

As he shifted off the bed, he gave her a low smile. “Love you too.”

He left her in near sleep in their bed as he moved to the fresher to finish himself, promising every bone in his body that it wasn’t a lie. He cared about her, he wanted her in mind and body. He didn’t want her to leave. This is what love was, right? Damn the Jedi and its teachings; damn his parents and their constant bickering. He finished into his hand as he thought about her soft words of caring and the arch of her hips before washing off.

She was already half-asleep when he re-joined her.

“Love you,” he tested, kissing her temple.

She curled against him, humming and kissing his chest.

He found sleep easily for some reason and woke before dawn.

She was still deep asleep, wrapped up in his bed sheets. He looked on with guilty eyes as he found new clothes from his wardrobe, pulling on underclothes and then the full Jedi tunics and leggings, obi and belt and over tunics. With silence, he packed as he watched her soft mouth breathe against his pillows.

As he hoisted his pack, filled with formal wearings and a reserve change of clothes he sighed.

He was the worst master in the history of the Jedi.

That thought hung on his mind as he kept her asleep as he lent over to kiss the corner of her mouth.

He left her before she woke.

Three weeks weren’t the end of the world.


	3. Chapter 3

 

Ben had only been gone a week and Rey already felt like she was going insane. She’d escaped the hell that was astrophysics and now entered a deeper level, listening to a stuffy senior Senate page drone on about protocol and the duties of the young, fresh-faced people assembled in the empty tertiary chamber, normally reserved for ceremonies or larger committee meetings. Now, it was filled with nearly 300 people trying to climb the political ladder. There were so many ambitious thoughts drifting around the room that she wanted to scream.

Instead, she sighed and crossed her legs, suddenly uncomfortable in the elaborate dress Anakin had given her yesterday. He’d smiled brightly when she tried it on and she instantly hated it. But then Ben made contact and her heart threatened to beat out of her chest when he saw what she was wearing and gave her a glowing compliment on the purple and grey fabric. Anakin had caught how she was smiling and raised an eyebrow, forcing her to clamp down on her emotions.

He actually checked in every day, her master. She lived for his midafternoon contact, wanting desperately to hug the hologram as it flickered in their apartment.

What she wanted more was him to call late at night so she could hear his voice before she fell asleep.

The mission was boring, but she still wanted to be there.

He didn’t say a word about wanting her to be there, insisting that she focus on her task. She wanted to do a good job and make him proud.

But most of all, she wanted him to be home.

He _loved_ her. She grinned to herself, tuning out the endless speech Master Page Bin´to was giving.

“How can anyone be enjoying this?”

Her head snapped towards the careful whisper. The young man next to her, dressed in a style that she wasn’t familiar with, raised his blond eyebrows and smirked at her reaction.

“Shh,” she shook her head. “We’re supposed to be listening.”

“Then what is he talking about?”

She glared at him. “Subparagraph 14 of the tenth amendment to the Galactic charter.”

He smiled brightly then, tilting his head. He was her age, maybe older. Soft freckles dotted his face and silver-blue eyes drew her in. His hair was shorter than Ben’s and a light, reddish blond. He looked like the son of a senator. He probably was.

“Why do we need to know that?”

“Shh,” she said, swatting at him. Two heads turned to glare at them and she felt her face redden.

“I’m Cayde.” He leaned closer to her ear, ignoring how the others around them shifted at their talking.

“Rey,” she answered. “Now be quiet and listen.”

“Fine.”

Cayde sat back, turning his eyes back to the speaking platform. The Master Page went on for another twenty minutes before they were dismissed for noon meal.

Her new friend followed her into the ornate hall and she had to roll her eyes.

“Who were you assigned to?” He asked, dogging her as she walked with the flow of the other junior pages.

“Why do you care?”

He grinned again, showing off alluring dimples, not breaking stride as he followed her. Sighing, she stepped into an alcove, brushing against an over-sized vase to let the rest of their group pass.

“Hey, I just want to know.”

“Naboo,” she answered cooly. “So, now you know and can leave me alone.”

“You’re from Naboo?”

She drew on her Jedi patience not to react to his inane question. “No. I’m from Jakku.”

“Wow,” Cayde said, raising his eyebrows. “You’ve come along way from _that_ place.”

Pursing her lips, she narrowed her eyes. “If I ask who you were assigned, will you leave me alone?”

“Brentaal,” he answered, still looking at her with amusement. “I’m already in over my head with all the trade route shit.”

She actually felt herself getting less annoyed at his face at that point. He caught her faltering and reached out to touch her arm. Her eyes were firm when she looked up from the offending limb back to his eyes.

“Sorry,” he said as he instantly dropped his hand. “Look, I…”

She could feel what he wanted to ask her and had to bite her lip. This was part of the training. She wasn’t there as a Jedi, but was meant to blend in. All of it was so much harder without having Ben to talk to at night. His messages were daily, but too quick. He wasn’t distracted and met her eyes firmly every time that they spoke, but it still felt like he was avoiding things. This boy, Cayde, was real, standing there and wanting to ask her to lunch. She finally gave him a light smile and saw how his eyes lit up at the slight gesture.

“Yes, I’d like to go to lunch with you. But we need to be back for…”

“Yeah, before the afternoon session.” Words spilled rapidly from his mouth and she wanted to laugh at how suddenly flustered he looked. “The food here is awful. I know a place.”

“We can’t leave,” she said and heard her own voice squeak as he took her arm again.

“Of course we can. As long as we’re back before the session, they won’t care.”

Sucking in her breath, Rey was dragged along by Cayde out to the air-taxi platform. She studied him, trying to place his clothes firmly this time and gauge his body movements, like this was a mission. Ben could always pick up on little things that would always fly by her in an instant. She tried to focus as they waited, the wind whipping at her hair so it started to loosen from its awkward bun. It had been four years since she had needed to bother with longer hair and she didn’t do a great job. Just imagining Ben pulling it up into a proper bun made her smile again and Cayde nudged her.

“Are you thinking about the Galactic charter again?”

“Of course,” she smirked. “I’m serious about my job.”

Finally, the taxi arrived and he gave the directions to a small kiosk, down a few levels to a part of Coruscant that Rey had never been to. Then again, she always hated all of the people and business of this endless-city planet.

Cayde pushed her out of the open cab and onto a platform and she grunted at being told what to do. He forced her towards the counter and she frowned at the expansive menu. Her eyes darted across the greasy counter and finally gave into panic.

“Just…order for me.” She mumbled. There were too many people, jostling for a spot in the queue and she felt strong shoulders brushing hers to the point of confusion. She pushed back, leaving him behind her, blinking and shaking his head as she tried to catch her breath.

Finding a small table on the terrace, she focused on her centre, on Ben’s words in her head: she could see, she could think, and she could feel. She wasn’t trapped in a cave about to be destroyed by dirty-mouthed villains. These were just people — looking for something to eat. The sun was shining and the weather was the usual, constant temperature. She focused on the weather as her heart started to slow. She was safe; this was okay.

“What happened?” Cayde asked, appearing suddenly with two plates of edible-looking sandwiches.

She did her best to smile and shake her head. “Just needed some air.”

He gave her a careful look before taking the seat across from her.

She looked down at the food and then up at him and suddenly blurt out. “I have a boyfriend.”

“Oh,” he answered, finishing chewing before answering properly. “That’s…interesting.”

Rey felt flustered for a moment, watching him pick up his food again. “Why…why did you ask me to lunch then?”

He smirked, setting his meal down again. “This isn’t a date, Rey. I’m…I’m just looking for someone normal to talk to. Everyone else it that room…I felt like I couldn’t breathe when I looked at them. I guess that’s why I sat next to you.”

She felt her face getting warm under his gentle blue eyes. “You think that I’m normal?”

“Yeah,” he answered with a nod. “Of course you are.”

She smiled a real smile, not the ones she had to hide from the council or from too-serious fellow Padawans. She started eating and was pleasantly surprised at his choice. It was spicy and warm and made her forget how nervous she had been only a few moments ago.

“So, where’s your boyfriend?”

Swallowing hard, she tilted her head. “I thought that you didn’t care.”

“I didn’t say that I didn’t care. I just thought it was interesting.”

“He’s a diplomat. He’s away on work,” she quickly fibbed. “I miss him.”

“So that’s why you were smiling during all that boring garbage.”

“Yes,” she said with a shrug. “A little.”

“He’s lucky to have you,” Cayde replied, resting his elbows on the flimsy table.

Rey didn’t have an answer to that. She just smiled and let herself drift in the daydream of romance as she finished her lunch.

 

-=-

 

 

Ben Solo’s eyes glazed over as the unending lunch launched into its third hour. The sub-chief of the third-tier tribe on Glint V had started into another rant about funding to moisture farming on his continent.

Thank the gods he had saved from Rey this level of Sith hell.

Thinking about her made him wake up, clearing his throat at the pause in the sub-chief’s rant.

A dozen heads turned to look at him and he had to clamp down on his annoyance.

“I can’t see a fault in his argument,” he finally said. “It’s something to consider, high chief.”

The high chief, seated beside his prized daughter, nodded his dark fuchsia head. “Yes, master Jedi. Thank you. Chief A’l’abba, we shall consider this. This lunch is concluded.”

Everyone but the sub-chief gave him a scarcely hidden look of thanks as they rose from the table. He was about to eat his own lightsaber in any attempt to escape from that man and his irritating voice.

He took his escape out onto the terrace of the sprawling palace. Two more weeks. He had two more weeks there in total. The wedding was in three days and then came the endless after ceremonies. He rolled his eyes and smoothed his hair in the warm afternoon air. For a moment, he cast his thoughts back to Coruscant. Rey would be starting her senate rotation and would need to talk to him at length that evening. Thankfully for him, there wasn’t the normal hourly difference. This planet had been so desperate for Republic attention that they had adopted Republic time, changing the clocks to forcibly bend their people to standard time.

He felt a moment of nervousness cross their training bond and tensed before it passed. Rey was an adult and a Jedi; he didn’t need to loom over her.

But what was he going to do when he came home?

He was so used to not meeting expectations, but this was one that he needed to actually answer for.

She had tasted so sweet on his lips, gasping into his hand and looking at him with pure adoration.

But this was his Padawan.

He had three options, he decided. One was telling her that it was a mistake and earning her hatred for the rest of his life. The second was falling into a doomed romance that _would_ get found out. But then again, the rumours were already flying. Might as well prove them right. The third was leaving the Order and doing away with those dull idiots in their white tower.

He was leaning hard towards option two because he didn’t ever want her to hate him, even though it doomed him internally.

Love had ruined Anakin and Padmé. Love had ruined Han and Leia. He was determined not to believe in it.

As if the Force could feel his troubles, like it tended to _never_ do, something stirred in his chest. It was like the dull flutter the first time that he had found Rey. Standing up, he took in a deep, cleansing breath and instantly took off towards the feeling. There was an afternoon of protocol ahead of him but this was infinitely better.

Ignoring swirling gowns and turned heads, he passed the crowds in the gardens below. He skidded to a stop, watching purple faces turn to face him.

“Is there something wrong, Master Jedi?”

An older female voice asked. The mother of the groom. He shouldn’t offend her, but he couldn’t waste time by talking.

“There’s something here,” he simply said. “I’ll be back.”

With a rush of brown robes, he left the gardens into the terrace outside. The cobblestones rattled against his boots as he searched out the presence. It was moving, watching him. It wanted a chase. He turned his dark head as he emerged from an alleyway to catch the feeling hard in his chest.

Then it moved again and he grinned. _Finally_. _Something_.

The city moved behind him like a blur, people selling fruit and wares, screaming in his ear as he ran by. The fluttering was starting to get distant and he pushed by a vendor, determined to catch it in this maze of walls and streets and people.

Keeping his breath even, he reached the city walls. Finally, the fake opulence of the world vanished and he was in the real world that they had tried to hide from him behind long meals and finished dressings. Poverty hit him hard and he drew up his hood, still seeking the feeling in the slums that poorly reflected the fake riches the planet was trying to sell to the Republic.

More people, shanty huts, dirt and grime. None of this had been shone to him before. His handlers had kept this from him. Shaking his head, he focused instead on the sensation that the Force was sending him.

 _There_.

Like a burning fire, his eyes locked on a dirty, damaged hut, in the sea of identical destitute.

Straightening his shoulders, he corrected his breathing as he knocked.

There was no answer so he tossed back the dirty cloth entrance.

The space was empty. It was a dark and dingy hut, but it hummed with the energy of its departed resident.

He searched around, finding no traces or clues. Kicking at the dirt floor, he groaned before heading back to the palace grounds.

He was much slower in his return, still searching the area for whatever had woken the feeling in his chest and wondering whether to tell Rey about it or not. 

 

 


	4. Chapter 4

 

The music and noise of the nightclub pounded Rey’s ears as she tried to push herself further into the overly soft booth. She still clutched the same drink she’d been handed hours ago by one of the other pages, who had quickly disappeared onto the dance floor.

Ben hadn’t made contact for a week now, and their last conversation hung over her head. She'd been pathetic and weak and he'd been, well, her master. 

She’d trying reaching him every morning through the comm since then and there hadn’t been a response. 

And no one else was worried except for her.

Even Anakin had brushed off her concern. The long process of the wedding ceremony had begun; he might be allowed the free time to report back. Knights went out of contact all of the time and she had to trust in the procedures. There were no reports of an outbreak of civil war from the newsholos, and there were no official requests for a replacement. He was a Jedi Knight and could manage on his own.

The only thing keeping her from hopping on a transport was the gentle touches of their training bond brushing against her mind every now and again.

It was especially at night that the sensation would come, making her miss him even more. Trying to sleep alone in his bed made her heart and her body ache with impatience and loneliness. She hoped that the caresses from his mind were ones of love, but they were probably more about releasing her emotions into the Force and trusting him. But the touches kept her warm for at least the morning, as she prepared to depart for the Senate, still donning the annoying clothes that the Naboo pod sent over. She could never get her hair right and left it as it was: in a simple braid down her back.

Instead of meditating on the feelings, she let them blossom in her chest.

This wasn’t the way of the Jedi, but her master had shown her how to bend the rules so she was destined to follow.

The love that she felt for him couldn't be doused in the silence; instead, it seemed to grow. And so did her willingness to release emotions into the air instead of the Force.

Being around so many young and driven people made it easier to laugh harder or react in mock anger at some minor slight, descending into teasing in the lunchroom and mutual laughter in the common room. They were serious in the halls of the Senate and during meetings with their senatorial pods committees. There were pads to exchange and conferences to organize; overly stoic politicians would suddenly crack if one word was wrong or their favourite chai was not served promptly when the session ended. Cayde told her how one of his delegates and tossed a carafe at him and he had to pretend not to flinch. She wanted to tell him the trick to it, but held back.

They had spent every lunch together, sometimes grabbing the evening meal before she took the shuttle home to the Temple. He would slyly ask where she lived, since he was staying in lower Senatorial apartments. She had to lie and say that the Naboo had fixed her up with something a little less rowdy, knowing the rumours of the halls of the pages and lower staff. He had only smiled and winked, instantly giving away the fact that he knew she was lying. Or at least thought he did.

She never had any problems with her pod at this point. She knew that one of the aides, Tamara, suspected she was a Jedi, or at least was too quiet. The names Anakin Skywalker, Obi-Wan Kenobi, and Sheev Palpatine were legendary on Naboo; Rey had to steady her face whenever their legends were referenced in passing. She would quietly distribute documents and then escape to the hallway to breathe and clear her mind. Senator Gilan Honama was patient and kind to her, often over-explaining something that she already understood in his office once the session was dismissed. The rest of the delegation just regarded her as another page. It was an interesting test in patience and she could focus for several hours at a time, before she was left on her own to sort documents.

Deep down, all she wanted was Ben to comm her. She just wanted to hear his voice and see his small holo. She wanted to know that he had forgiven her.

And that’s how she ended up being dragged to the nightclub district to a lavish and expansive dance club. They’d survived two weeks. Everyone who served nearby pods had started to bond in one of the crowded common rooms. Cayde had started to become a ringleader, spreading gossip and offering suggestions for the best places to hear the rumours start first hand. He was a born politician and was working hard to make connections. For some reason, he'd latched on to her. Still, she had a friend for these few weeks when she could use one.

She didn’t trust the rest of the group, but had started to depend on him to break her bad moods.

Like she had summoned him, Cayde strode up the small staircase off the dance floor to where she was sitting. He waved lightly and navigated around the low table to sit next to her.

“What’s wrong?” He asked, leaning over to nearly yell in her ear over the music.

“Nothing!” She shouted back. “It’s just a little loud.”

“You don’t like dancing?”

“I don’t know how!”

He laughed and gave her a playful shove. She would have hit him back with force if she weren’t centred and aware of what he was about to do.

“I hate it here!” She finally shouted. “It’s really not my thing.”

Cayde sat back and finished his drink and finally nodded. “Finish that and we’ll get out of here.”

“What?”

“Come on, you’ve been moping all week,” he said, nodding at the glass he had handed her earlier when they arrived. The ice had long ago melted and she had hardly sipped at it. Glaring at him lightly, she took two long gulps to finish the glass. She held it up to him and he smiled broadly. Finally, she could get out of there.

Annoyed by the jumping and jostling bodies standing in their path, she quietly misused her abilities to nudge the various humans and aliens out of their way. Cayde didn’t seem to notice that they left likely five minutes quicker than they should have.

“Where are we going?” She asked, finally outside where she could keep her voice level. Her ears were still ringing and she could feel the drink already start to rattle her focus.

“My place. I’ll make you tea and figure out what’s wrong,” he gave her a soft look while he flagged down an air taxi. "The others can take care of themselves."

She had to fight to keep her face passive. She’d never been to his apartment before. But the Force wasn’t nudging her in either direction, even when she cast her mind out to look for danger. There was none. He was just trying to be her friend.

Rey had never really had friends before, except for Ben.

But where was he?

The thought hung over her as she travelled across the bustling air space back to the Senate district. She shut her eyes and reached out for him, finding only the mutual bond that connected them across the galaxy. There was no panic or danger, but nothing positive either. She gripped her comm in her pocket and almost resigned herself from not hearing from him that night.

“Hey,” Cayde’s voice broke her trance. “Are you okay?”

“My head hurts from the music,” she blinked hard and met his eyes. “I’ll be alright in a bit.”

“Sure.”

The cab came to a halt and she numbly followed Cayde onto the open platform, pulling her cloak around her. Instead of her comfortable brown one, this was a deep, velvety material that felt awkward in her hand. She would be glad to be done with the Senate floor in a week or so and back to her regular clothes. Naboo garb was not her favourite, despite how much Ben and Anakin enjoyed it.

It took two long hallways and a lift to reach Cayde’s small apartment. It was identical to those around it, she felt, all meant for junior staff to keep the massive body running. She knew that the senators and more senior staff had much better rooms but was prepared for Cayde’s more low-key space.

“Yeah, it’s not much, but it’ll do for now,” he said, leading her inside. There was a single bed along the wall and a small table with two chairs on the opposite wall. The fresher and a small cooking area were also crammed into the single room. At least he had his own shower she thought, remembering the annoyance of sharing one on longer transports. She hung up her cloak and fixed her dress, thinking it was odd that there weren’t any datapads stacked anywhere. She would often bring work home with her; Cayde seemed more determined to keep his post.

“Where are you thinking of moving?” She asked, sitting on his neatly made bed. It made her cringe at her own laziness; she hadn’t made the bed this morning.

“Wherever,” he shrugged, opening the cupboard with a touch to take down a bottle and two small glasses. Rey narrowed her eyes. That wasn’t chai. “Come on, it’s been a long week. We have a day off tomorrow. Relax for once, Rey. You’re always working too hard.”

She did work hard, especially this last week, but that was mainly to distract herself from Ben being gone. All she wanted was to kiss him again, to finish learning his mouth. She wanted to know more of his body too and to feel him inside of her. She wanted to believe that she was innocent from these things, but he knew that she wasn't. But still, the way that he'd touched her before she left told her that he didn't think that she was broken or weak. He’d all but promised they'd be together again when he said he loved her. He was going to make her feel whole again.

She eyed the bottle and finally shrugged, letting her thoughts go with the motion. She wasn’t like most of the Padawans at the Temple. She had been forced to look for various odd jobs at cantinas when scavenging for metal scraps ran low. That’s how the junk trader had caught her. That’s when she lost her freedom, but also what led her to Ben.

She was thinking about the soft curls of his dark hair when Cayde snapped his fingers in front of her eyes.

“Wake up, Rey. Take a drink.”

His blue eyes were bright and his face was red from drinking. He'd be handsome to anyone else not in love.

“Alright.”

She accepted the glass with a light pout, earning a smile from him. He sat down on one of his simple chairs and faced her.

Sipping at the amber liquid, she finally met his eyes and tried to hid her disgust at the taste.

“Rough week at home?”

She tried to smile slyly at him, but it felt flat on her lips. “I can’t see why you care.”

“I’m trying to be your friend here. You’ve been off in your own little world since the start of the week,” he shrugged, finishing his glass and then pouring himself another.

Still defying her better judgement, Rey copied him and held out her hand to get a refill. The liquid burnt her throat and awoke ghosts of cave demons in the corners of her mind.

“I’m guessing that your boyfriend is away.”

“And I haven’t talked to him in a week,” Rey finally sighed. “I don’t know what’s wrong and I’m…worried.”

He nodded. “What’s his name?”

The way he was looking at her made her test his feelings. He was speaking sincerely, but there were deeper emotions than friendship there. He liked her. He liked her the first day he saw her. He was handsome and said all of the right things with ease. He wanted to get into politics and was making all of the right steps. He was a friend to her when she was feeling lonely. She had to trust that he would respect those boundaries.

After taking a drink, she finally decided that she could tell him. “Ben.”

Cayde nodded and shifted his weight. “He normally checks in all the time?”

“Yes.” She pushed herself up on the bed to rest on the wall, leaving her feet dangling over the edge. The alcohol was starting to warm her and her head had stopped hurting from the damned night-club music. “And I miss him.”

Cayde took a deep breath and stood from his chair. He snatched up the bottle and moved to sit next to her. Her initial impulse was to pull away, but sat where she was. She was alone in his room. She’d put herself in that situation. She’d have to get herself out of it.

“I’m sure he misses you too,” he said, filling both his and her glass again. “People just get busy. My father can go forever without talking to me.”

“It must be weird being so close now and facing the same thing,” she answered.

His eyes narrowed. “How did you know my father was on Coruscant?”

 _Kriff_. “Lucky guess?”

He smirked. “It’s fine if you’ve checked me up, Rey. Everyone does it.”

She hadn’t really, but smiled in response. Taking a slow drink, she sighed. She could feel her comm, beside her concealed lightsaber, and wished that Ben would just contact her so she could leave. Stumbling into the Temple drunk wasn’t going to go over well with the night guards.

Cayde’s arm came around her shoulders and she stiffened.

“What are you doing?”

She met his eyes and smelt him. Her entire body cringed and she hoped that he felt how she was shrinking away from him. He couldn't touch her without her permission. He shouldn't do that without her wanting him to. If it weren't for her hours in meditation and training, she would have punched him then and there. Instead, she just stared. 

“You looked like you needed a hug.”

His response hung heavy in the air and she sucked in air through her nose. A notion of danger started to rise in her chest and she shrugged him off, finishing her glass and standing. “It’s late. I should really go.”

“It’s not that late, come on,” he said, shifting off the bed.

She shook her head and went to gather her cloak. She had slightly turned her back, rolling her eyes to herself at her own stupidity. Of course he wanted more. Of course she would be brought there. Now she’d have to spend a week avoiding him and…

“Hey, catch!”

Cayde called and she was turning with her lightsaber out in the brief moment she had to react.

She sliced the liquor bottle in two, spilling its contents on the floor and sending the two pieces crashing alongside it.

Her eyes were wide when she looked at him.

His normally friendly smile was now malicious, oozing with satisfaction. “I knew you were Jedi.”

He reached inside his tunic and brought out a small device. When he pushed it, she heard the door lock.

She’d missed all this. He’d been out after her from the beginning. The door wouldn’t stop her, but deflecting a blaster at close range was always dangerous.

“What’s going on?” She gritted her teeth. “Who are you _really_?”

“I know someone who’s very interested in Jedi. Specifically you and your master,” he took a step forward and she pointed her ‘saber towards him. He didn’t even blink. “This boyfriend thing will _thrill_ him.”

“Who?”

Cayde’s mouth quirked. “Like I’m going to tell you.”

Swiftly flipping the hilt in her hand, she sliced through the door behind her, still watching him. Giving him one last look, she leapt through the hole she had made and was about to sprint down the hall when a quick strike from a stun weapon knocked her down.

Blinking at the shock, she gazed up to see a blurred face looming over her. She fought to catch a glimpse of him, but was quickly being pulled into unconsciousness.

“Go to sleep, Jedi.”

Her last panicked thought went out to her master.

But unlike before, she couldn’t feel him.

 

-=-

 

The morning after he felt the mysterious sensation in the town, Ben was met with a guard at the gate to the palace when he tried to leave to investigate it further. He hadn’t slept well that night and was edgier than usual.

The comm to Rey the previous evening had been hard.

She had looked exhausted when he called in, later than he normally did. He had spent too long in meditation trying to unravel the odd impression he got from the hut. He brought up the encounter and she nodded, but still yawned. He asked her about the Senate and she looked at him with tears in her eyes, saying how much she missed him, and wanted him to come home. She sounded like a lost child and his reaction wasn’t kind. He’d never snapped at her before, but there shouldn’t be these types of emotions when they were apart. There would be other times and they would be hard. She killed the holo and only her voice answered him that she would work on it. He tried to recover, saying that he missed her as well and really wanted to be done with the mission, but the wound had been made. She sadly told him that she loved him again and he managed to say the words without regret. She was young and should be allowed to worry about him. He was just an idiot.

Now, faced with a palace guard blocking his exit into the city, he had other frustration to deal with.

“Why.” He repeated. They’d already been arguing for fifteen minutes at this point. “I have the high chief’s trust to return.”

“These orders come from the high chief,” the guard stated, unflinchingly. “The ceremony will be underway soon and we are sealing the grounds.”

He could bluff his way out. He _should_ bluff his way out, but instead he glared and turned to storm away. The grounds were filled with various tribe members milling about on morning walks. A few turned their heads to watch him climb the ornate staircase back up to the main palace entrance. He would contact the council to get permission to leave. Pressing on the issue of the Republic would get him what he wanted.

Winding through the halls, he ignored the bustling staff decorating the walls and pillars. His quarters were up three more levels so he was forced to dodge even more staff and attendees. The idea of being trapped only on the grounds for the next two weeks made the back of his neck itch.

Lost in frustrated thoughts, he banged into the morning teacart and the poor servant manoeuvring it down the hall towards his quarters.

“Master Jedi!” The girl exclaimed as the cart landed hard on its side. He stumbled before catching his balance and keeping her upright as well. The cart and its contents weren’t so lucky.

He huffed out an apology and helped her right the cart. The contents were spread across the floor and he started to pick up the pieces as she kept apologizing in return.

His hand brushed one of the still-whole carafes and his eyes narrowed in an instant.

“Is this the first floor you’ve been on?”

She shook her head. “Yes, sir. Halia and Yanna have the other rooms.”

Standing, he eyed the carafe. Grabbing a bit of broken saucer, he poured the remaining contents into it. He smelled it and the flowery scent of the tea easily masked the poison. Motioning at her, he took the small testing device from his utility belt and watched her eyes widened as it made a nasty, deep beep as it met the liquid.

“Who filled the cart?” He asked, setting the carafe down hard.

“It just came from the kitchen. Like it always does,” her hands came up to her mouth and she looked afraid. It wasn’t her, he could tell, and she didn’t know who had tainted the cart. “What does this mean?”

Shaking his head, he frowned. “I want you to get the head of security. Go up to the rooms and stop the other carts. Who else is on this floor?”

“This is your floor, sir. Chiefs A’l’abba and Och’ani, from the Gran tribe, along with Chiefs Jalla and Ton’bi, from the Th’alk tribe.” Her shocked expression deepened as she relayed the names. This was an assassination attempt.

Eying the saucer, he took a deep breath. “Bring the head of security to my quarters.”

He turned and left, hearing her scurry away.

He didn’t have much time to contemplate his bad morning getting worse before the head chief and his staff were in his room, nattering away and demanding how he knew the tea had been contaminated. Now, the head chief was affirmed in his decision to close the grounds. They could find the culprit and not ruin the ceremony. Ben felt his headache getting worse as the security chief reported that the other carts were not tainted. This was clearly meant for their floor.

The rest of the day was eaten up with an endless meeting about the attempt, as well as the routines for the ceremony to come. He had broached the subject of delaying the wedding, but he was shut down in a heartbeat. Lunch and then dinner were served, after careful observation in the kitchen. Still, he hardly ate. Most of the plates around him were not emptied either.

By the time he returned to his room, it was evening and he was out of energy. By the time his thoughts turned to Rey, he found only lingering pain at his words nearly ten hours ago. He moved to the console in his room to comm her when the panel gave him a blocked signal. Reaching for the comm on his belt, he found the same problem.

No one had mentioned blocking communications to him.

Storming from the room, he tracked down a member of the security staff. It was the same guard from that morning and he groaned inwardly.

“Why are they blocking communications?” He demanded.

The man looked confused. “We’re doing no such thing, master Jedi.”

Thrusting his comm in the man’s face, he shook his head. “Then why can’t I contact the Jedi Temple?”

Frowning, the guard reached for his own comm device. The sound of no signal met both of their ears and Ben had to raise his eyebrows in mild victory.

“Stay in your room. I will get answers,” the guard said before turning to leave.

Dropping his shoulders, Ben returned to his quarters and flopped down on the bed.

Even the ceiling offended him.

By the time the chief had returned, he had removed his robe and outer tunic and just wanted the day to end at that point.

“It’s not planet-wide, but there’s something blocking communications from the palace,” the serious-looking older man said. “We’ll get it solved in the morning.”

“I want to be there,” he replied, straining not to sound angry. “Wake me when you start your efforts.”

The chief eyed him and then slowly nodded and left.

Alone now, Ben rubbed his eyes. The Force had given him a challenge for once, even though it was a simpler one, and he was being blocked by the incompetence of the individuals around him. There would be ceremonial activities that would stand in his way as well. That’s where the true problem would be.

And the problem of his Padawan’s tears couldn’t be a priority, despite how it gnawed at his stomach.

He should have meditated or trained to unwind, but couldn’t find the energy. Instead he dressed for bed and made himself sleep.

Resting in the darkness, he took steady, even breaths. He had to resist letting everything nagging at him keep him from resting.

As he slipped into dreams, the only thoughts that followed him concerned Rey.

She was in his bed, smiling up at him from his chest. She leaned up to kiss him, sweeping her tongue inside his mouth. Her hands traced down his side, touching and caressing him with intimate tenderness. Her hair was long and loose, framing her face. The sun was shining through the window, illuminating her tanned skin.

She laughed and kissed him again. Her delicate body moved on top of him, straddling him. He saw her beauty and felt the strength of her legs. The world between sleep and reality blurred then. He knew he was dreaming then because the vision was too bright and shining. It could have been real when she stretched out to kiss him again, pressing her soft breasts against his chest. He gripped her back and his hands tingled as they explored her skin.

Her mouth broke from his to latch onto his neck, nipping at his ear and then pressing kisses down his throat. He could hear her giggle as his body reacted to the caresses. She shifted off of him and he turned to watch her.

He really did want her, wanted to love her. The already-bent rules of the Jedi didn’t apply to them in dreams.

She rested her head against the pillow, gliding her fingertips down his chest.

She spoke, but he couldn’t hear her.

He reached for her but his hand seemed to slip through her. He leaned down to kiss her and she vanished.

The lingering anticipation shook him awake, well before dawn.

“Sith,” he hissed, shifting uncomfortably to sit up, despite his body’s reaction.

And that set the tone for the rest of the week. The communications blackout couldn’t be solved until the wedding was over, so he kept a running report that was growing in length by the day. He suffered through the wedding ceremony in uncomfortable ceremonial robes. Then he blankly sat through each post-wedding ceremonial meeting with the most neutral expression he could muster. The days were endless, but the nights were more frustrating.

The dreams grew more vivid, almost making him want to swear off sleeping to bring himself to the point of exhaustion in which he could no longer dream.

He dreamt of bringing Rey to orgasm with his mouth, feeling every thrust of her body.

He dreamt of her mouth around his cock, bringing him to ecstasy while her hands clenched his strong thighs, thus requiring a change of sheets. He had purposely spilled a mug of tea on the bed that morning to make the excuse for new linens.

By the end of the second week on the planet, he was waking up feeling both satisfied and guilty simultaneously. The Force was punishing him for his harsh words by showing him these things.

He’d woken up before dawn _again_ , and was already showered and changed when the sun rose. He was meditating when one of the guards knocked on his door. He could feel him before he opened his eyes. His back to the door, he inwardly groaned at the intrusion.

“Come in,” he called.

The guard entered with his light boots and stood behind him to clear his throat. “Master Jedi…”

The danger was at his throat with the words and he was turning and on his feet in less than a second, lightsaber already lit. He blocked the blaster bolt directly back into the pistol, shocking the guard.

The other man fell back, clutching his hand.

“Who sent you?” He glared, thrusting his blade at the other man’s throat. “I don’t know you.”

The guard shook his head, breathing growing rapid. “I…I don’t remember.”

This was a guard that normally patrolled the other end of the grounds, Ben pulled from his mind. He had been approached by a cloaked figure and had been given the blaster and his orders. The thing that spiked Ben’s breathing was the fact that the guard couldn’t recall the walk up to his room. He’d been pressed on by the Force. There was a Force user here.

The dark presence had shown itself again.

“You will go back to your post and forget all of this. And if you see the cloaked figure again, you will come to me first,” he commanded, reaching out to his mind.

“I will go back to my post and forget all this,” the other man parroted. “And if I see the cloaked figure, I will come to you first.”

As he scrambled away, Ben folded his saber back into its place at his hip. He gathered his robe. He would ignore the ‘pressing’ meeting with the third-tier tribe repeating their demands again, and instead try to find what he’d been looking for all along.

But before leaving his room, he reached out again to Rey. She needed to know that he was safe and cared about her. He had felt her reaching for him, making his uncertain heart shudder. The last time he’d seen her was in his dreams; in reality, he had one week left. But with the breach in communications and threats against the delegates, he had every right to leave and present his report for further investigation. He’d looked it up in the Republic charter and had highlighted it in his now 257-page report.

Casting out his mind, he rested his hand against the doorframe. The darkness had been at the edge of the grounds, but now was somewhere else.

It was so close that he could almost taste it.

Opening his eyes, he concentrated on one corner of the kitchen, near the servants’ quarters.

There was an entrance there that no one knew about.

That’s how the attempted assassin got in and out.

And he was there now.

He moved with Force-aided speed, shifting around the palace staff and middling tribal members to reach his goal. The kitchen area spread out over one of the lower floors, taking up enough space to provide whatever the chief needed. He again made a note to add this element of opulence to his report. With the population suffering, there was no need for a chief to live like an oligarchical king. It was the downfall of lesser societies.

He entered into the chaos of preparing breakfast for the entire population of the palace. Cooks and servants rushed by him without noticing him and his destination. There was a small storage room beside the larger one: the best place to go unnoticed.

Drawing his lightsaber finally drew some looks from the staff as he moved to open the door.

The fluttering in his chest told him that his target was on the move so he quickened his motions and keyed open the door. The security was idiotic here and it was easy to memorize codes.

He caught the tails of a robe feeling behind a rack of dried rootfruit bags into a darkened tunnel.

Gritting his teeth, he thumbed off his saber and took pursuit, forcing his larger form into the tunnel.

In the darkness, he was guided only by the Force. He reached for it the entire time, hoping that it would tell him more about what or whom he was following. He were quicker and smaller than he was. Now, he wished Rey were there. She would have slid through the tunnel with grace and swiftness and reached their goal without suffering scuffed shoulders and knees.

By the time daylight hit him, he knew that he’d failed. Whoever he was chasing had disappeared into the city, outside of the walls of the palace.

As he reached the edge of the tunnel, he was surprise to see a hand reach down as the space opened up. It was human, but obscured by the sunlight.

The Force told him to take it.

So he did.

He coughed as the hand helped him out of the hidden tunnel, behind a fruit-sellers stand. Covered in dirt, he had to blink through the grit to see who had helped him.

An ancient man with white hair and beard stood beside him, brushing off his hands. His bright blue eyes shone with the Force as he finally focused on them.

“It looks like you just missed him,” the dignified voice said with a smile. “And so did I.”

Ben had to clear his throat. But he couldn’t make words. He knew this face. He knew this man, only much younger and from holos.

He looked at him and quirked another smile. “Go ahead, knight. Ask who I am.”

“I know who you are,” he finally spat out, rubbing the dirt from his face. “You’re Obi-Wan Kenobi.”

Obi-Wan grinned. “Then it’s only fair that I know who you are as well, Ben Solo.”

He could only blink in response. The man had left the Temple long before he was born. And hadn’t been felt in the Force since then.

None of this was possible.

But here he was, towering above the man who his mother had named him after.

Obi-Wan shook him out of his stupor. “Now, we’ve got that out of the way, I need you to come with me. Your Padawan is in danger and our Sith is getting away.”

“What?” Was the only sound he could make.

Kenobi grabbed his arm and pulled him forward. “Follow me.”

 

 


	5. Chapter 5

 

Ben drummed his fingers on the panel of the small, older transport. He was still putting all of the pieces together and the damned Force wasn’t even making a peep.

Kenobi’s old hands finished inputting the flight plan to Coruscant and Ben lifted his eyes when he finally looked over at him.

“You need to cut off your bond to her,” his voice was firm. “Before we get there.”

“Why.”

Kenobi quirked his white head. “You could at least phrase that as a question.”

“It wasn’t one.”

Kenobi smirked lightly. “The council must be having fun when they deal with you.”

Ben let out a shaky breath. “We have our disagreements.”

Pale blue eyes locked with brown. “You sound like my master.”

Ben narrowed his eyes. “Tell me why I need to block my Padawan. If she’s in danger, why can’t I give her guidance? She’s young and inexperienced. She…needs me.”

He knew full well that he had left his duties to Glint V unfinished. His report was now only in his head and he could live with that. From Kenobi’s—why was he calling him that? _Obi-Wan’s_ —dire warning, the council would have bigger issue to deal with. And Rey was in the middle of it. Echoes of the dreams ghosted across his mind and he tensed.

“In what way?” Was the response from the other man.

He’d felt it. Kriff.

“Not in the way you’re thinking.”

He was met with two lifted eyebrows and turned to stare into space. He frowned at the sight.

“Why aren’t we in hyperspace?”

Kenobi leaned back. “The hyperdrive in this clunker is shot. It’s been…well, it’s probably older than you at this point. Unless you can fix it, we won’t get there until well after nightfall on Courscant.”

Ben was moving before the last syllable left the other man’s mouth. He didn’t know this type of freighter exactly, but was determined to get back before whatever dark threat the other Jedi had mentioned rained down on his girl. He stomped down to a lower level, studying the layout of the ship. This was something she would have been good at. She could fix anything.

She must be in the middle of a meeting at this point. He remembered the endless way that politicians could drone endlessly about myopic subjects that didn’t make a ripple in the larger scheme of things. It was all about factions, party lines, and taking care of their own interests. He heard his mother’s voice in the back of his head and groaned to himself as he found the hyperdrive unit. His frustration peaked when he heard footfalls behind him.

“How old were you when you were knighted?”

Ben focused on the drive and knelt down to study it. He frowned. It was an ancient T-14 generator; but this ship didn’t look Nubian at all. His shoulders stiffened and he didn’t turn.

“I was about the same age you were when you killed the Sith on Tatooine.”

He heard Obi-Wan chuckle and felt a hand on his shoulder. “Then things have really changed since I was young.”

His eyes were set in a glare when he finally looked over. “How did you get this ship?”

Obi-Wan took a slow step back and grinned sheepishly. “I’ve been putting it together over the years.”

Ben stood, still keeping his face neutral. “I know Nubian ships. And you know that. But I don’t know how or why.”

He had the decency to look shocked but then settled back into a light smile. Obi-Wan slowly brought himself down to the grated level beneath them, grimacing as he moved. Ben _knew_ that without hyperspace he could contact Anakin and Rey and talk to them, but something was pressing on his chest to keep him from doing that. If Obi-Wan was so concerned with Rey, he must have felt that as well. It must have been important to keep the threat from her. Ben looked down at the other man and narrowed his eyes.

“I’ve been, well, watching you. Your whole life.”

The words made him blink and he straightened. “But you still hid yourself from the Order. Why me?”

Obi-Wan sighed and rubbed the back of his neck. “It…it all comes down to feelings. It was like on Tatooine, when we found Anakin. My Master told me to stay on the ship and I couldn’t stop it. He always wanted me to feel and not think and that was when I really understood it. He wouldn’t have seen the darkness without me and we wouldn’t have been able to start unravelling it all before it could really start. I thought it was over then, when we uncovered Palpatine’s deception on Coruscant. But I knew it wasn’t over.”

“That’s not an answer,” Ben finally sighed and shifted to rest on his tired legs. He felt a hint of Rey’s frustration through their bond and lightly brushed against it. She shouldn’t be in the dark because of cryptic messages but until he got his, he wouldn’t be able to truly help her. “I knew all of that.”

“Did you? Really?”

Ben kept his eyes steady and didn’t answer.

“Before you were born, I knew there was a problem with the Order. They only saw things from one point of view. I never sat on the Council, but my master did. He saw through it all and before he was one with the Force, he made me promise that I would…help right what was wrong,” Obi-Wan’s eyes turned from meeting his to the stray thread on his trousers. He picked at it and sighed. “Think, Ben. I’m not you enemy here.”

He wanted to frown but stopped himself. Instead he thought about the mission that started as a failure but instead gave him the only light in his life. “You were _there_.”

“On Jakuu? Of course.”

Ben actually frowned now, feeling his body stiffen. “Then why didn’t you help her?”

Obi-Wan blinked then rubbed his eyes. “The Force…”

“Damn the Force!” He slammed his fist against the floor. “The Force is what _brought_ me to her when she was being brutalized. I’m so sick of the Force. The Force has been driving me into the ground my entire life and the _only_ time I felt anything was because of her. And now you’re telling me it was because you were there?”

He sucked down his breath and glared when he didn’t see any reaction from the older man.

“I needed you to find her yourself, Ben. I know the darkside, Ben. I felt it in your grandfather. Your uncle. And then you. Without her, we would have lost you.”

He leaned forward. “Why would I turn to the darkside?”

Obi-Wan looked at him like he saw through every minor problem that he’d ever had in the past — cheating in courses, overpowering opponents in sparring by mean tricks, arguing with his master over minor things — and it made the hairs on the back of his neck rise in fury and fear.

The last emotion he clamped down on instantly, but let the first part flow freely.

“Why don’t we focus on the generator? Let’s see if we can stop Rey from being taken again.” Obi-Wan moved to stand and struggled to bring himself to his feet. Out of reflex, Ben reached for him. He caught flashes of his grandmother and instantly his arms were out.

“But you were there when she was taken?” His hands firmed on the arms that he was holding. He could feel the bone and loosened them in a breath, letting his thoughts sink in. “Why were you never back home?”

“Where is home to you?”

Home was never the Temple. But it was now. With her.

“It’s wherever I am,” he said. “Not where you are.”

“But what about where she is?”

Now, his hand tightened. “Do not think that you know me.”

“I’ve known you your entire life.”

As Ben let his hand go and step back, he eyed the old man. “Then you know my opinion about puzzles, the council, and my Padawan.”

Obi-Wan licked his lips and leaned against the wall. “That’s not really an opinion. Any Force user knows that.”

Ben took a long step back. “I’m going to get the hyperdrive working. Leave me alone.”

He watched the ancient master gather his robes and eye him before nodding and slowly easing back to the cockpit.

There was something that the Force didn’t know; being big could still get a bit of leeway, occasionally.

 

-=-

 

The room was dark and her eyes were heavy. She blinked a couple of times, trying to make sense of the space. The emergency lighting, shining weakly against pale red walls, made her squint. Ornate fixtures calmed her; she was in an empty senatorial apartment. She knew these floor plans. She was still on Coruscant. Shaking her wrists, the weight of the binders made her set them down again.

She was on the floor, resting against a wall.

The binders were the only restraints, wrapped around the silky Naboo sleeves.

Why would he bring her here?

The Force poked at her like a wounded rodent, weakly scratching at her chest through her grogginess.

A robed figure turned from the window to stride towards her.

She should be more panicked but realizing that it wasn’t Cayde gave her some serenity.

A misshapen face slowly came into her vision as he leaned down to stare at her. A steady ache from the stun weapon spread through her body as she fully woke up. There was another sensation combined with it; she couldn’t focus and her body was lethargic. The Force was hazily out of her reach because of whatever they’d drugged her with; it was difficult to fight of the panic the realization brought, cancelling out the steady calm she had just felt.

“Finally, you’re ready to greet me,” he hissed. She squinted, trying to make sense of his features. A grin spread across his face at her search.

Her mouth sagged open as she took a shaky breath. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d been surrounded by such darkness, leaching through her drugged senses. Edging at her unsteady focus, his essence was an inky smudge. He was younger, but she couldn’t place his tones or species. All she wanted to do was make her body work so she could fight back.

“I’m not who you’re looking for,” she managed to say, her voice slurring as she spoke. “I found that lightsaber.”

He laughed, a dark and vicious sound that made her hide a shudder. She tried to grit her teeth, but that made him laugh harder.

“I know you’re lying. Please don’t continue with whatever you’re trying to devise in your juvenile mind.” He reached towards her face and she flinched as his long nails grazed her cheek. He tugged on her braid and his face fell neutral. “Padawan, tell me where your master is.”

The darkness pressed on her mind. Her nerves spiked with a deep ache that seemed to come from within her. He was searching her thoughts and plucking through her memories. Locking down with all of the power she could manage, she watched as his face became a carving of dawning rage. He wasn’t going to discover what she saw or knew; that was hers.

“You’re wasting your power with the Jedi if you can resist me.”

In a swirl of robes, he left her in the empty suite. She heard the door hiss shut and gulped down air. She hadn’t even realized that she was holding her breath.

Shaking her head, she tried to focus on her surroundings. Even through her clouded head, she could taste staleness in the air. The lack of furniture and the old scents meant she was in one of the suites undergoing renovations. The carpet didn’t match the newer rooms; even in the dim light, the grey tones gave her another clue. Traffic was streaking by, but the gaps were large between each of the cars. It was a higher lane; even in the late hours, Coruscant traffic was rarely that dead.

She was staring out into the darkness, trying to reason the time, when her captor returned.

He glared down at her, stretching out his hand to freeze her in place.

“Bring your master to me.”

This time, the focus burnt. It singed its way across the Force. Her body quivered. Tears in her eyes, she bit down. The pull was strong.

But she was stronger.

Frustration blazing in his eyes, he huffed. Stalking across the dingy carpet, he frowned at her.

But then a light smirk quirked at the edge of his pale lips. “You can’t feel him. You’re worried about why he’s cut himself off from you.”

“No,” she shot back. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

An invisible tightness gripped her throat. His eyes darkened as she struggled against the choke. Forcing herself to be calm, she shook herself into meeting his eyes. Resolve obscured her panic.

Grunting, he released her. Taking deep breaths, she leaned her head back against the wall.

There were dark Force users in the galaxy, but she’d never met one before. The training had been basic and sterile; resist and don’t react in anger. It would only feed their power. With her weak body, she couldn’t go through with the final step: fight back.

Licking his lips, he shifted to sit down across the dim expanse. He was just far enough away that his expressions were obscured now. Other than hatred, there were no other motives lurking in the space between them. Without the tells from his face, combined with the low light, she felt her heart sag; the disadvantages were too many. Her heart ached as she forced her mind away from Ben. Any thoughts of him would lead this monster directly to him.

She narrowed her eyes. “I’m not going to give you what you want.”

“We’ve really just begun, young Padawan. Don’t think that you’ve beaten me yet.”

His voice was steady, but an underlying rasp edged at the end of each syllable.

“What do you really want?” She asked, hoping to steer him towards wasting time.

A chuckle was her answer. He rose to his feet, staring down at her. Instead of attacking her mind, his angry hand struck her across her face. She was almost thankful for the numbness as she tasted blood from her lip.

“No more questions.”

His glare silenced her and he returned to his spot on the floor to continue his glaring.

They sat for hours in silence. His eyes hardly blinked, hard and vicious in the darkness. She fought against her exhaustion, letting her frustration drive her.

As dawn started to peck away at the sky, he finally drew himself to his feet.

“We’re leaving,” he commanded, snatching her up by the binders.

Her legs were numb and she stumbled, earning a rough shove back against the wall. She hit the wall roughly. Pain spiked in her shoulder as she tried to stay on her feet. He grunted in frustration and lashed out at her again. This time, his hand was what closed down around her throat. As the sharp nails dug into her skin, a faint whisper nudged at her mind. It was muffled, but there.

She knew that touch.

Reacting with increased speed, she kicked out at her captor’s legs. He easily blocked her, but had to release his grip. She struck out again at his head, but again his arms met hers. Gripping at her neck, he lifted her off the ground. She kicked again and he didn’t react to the blows.

“I’m not some crèche mate you can beat so easily, girl.” He held a long stare, piercing gold eyes drilling into her soul, before they tore away towards the door.

She landed in a heap as a bright blue blade sliced through the door. Her vision blurred and she fought to stay conscious as her captor drew an angry red lightsaber from his belt.

It was all she could focus on.

It hissed and sparked in his hand, burning into her mind.

The colour. The heat. The smell.

It was something so far from the Jedi, but still drew her in.

Rescue was at hand but her eyes could only watch the arch of red meeting blue. Her eyes blurred and she swore she saw two figures fighting the enticing red blade.

A harsh crash against a mirror on the wall finally knocked her back into the present.

Blinking, she snapped back to herself.

Her master was there, dueling with her captor.

And there was a third blade.

A white-bearded man was staring down the darkness.

“Rey!” Ben shouted at her. “You need to get up.”

He rushed back into the fight as she struggled to comply. She didn’t have a weapon and she was weak. As their bond spiked back to life, she felt Ben’s growing anger at the fight. They were two against one and he was much stronger than the dodging and darting third fighter.

She watched Ben finally land a blow against the man’s side and he hardly reacted. He nearly laughed as he took two long strides back. The dawn lit up the sky through the broad windows, filling the room.

Rey had rarely just watched Ben sparring let alone fighting from this vantage point. This was not blocking blaster bolts or resisting swinging staffs. The crisp and furious meeting of blades started again.

She watched her master as she moved towards the door. Her weapon had to be there somewhere. She could feel it calling to her, but couldn’t feel exactly where.

Watching the two blue-bladed fighters, she caught how similar their styles were. They were complimenting one another and forcing their opponent into exhaustion from steady and coordinated attacks. Her head still floating, but she was drawn into the attack and counter attack.

Her feet faltered and she stumbled again, falling to her knees near the pieces of the mirror. She caught her broken reflection in large shard, mixed with blood. The red blade glistened in the crimson spots.

Ben’s panic hit her before she felt a rough arm around her neck. She was too slow to react and a suddenly deactivated saber was pressed against her forehead.

“Stop.” The older man’s voice was steady as her eyes switched from Ben’s angry eyes to the second Jedi. “You won’t get away with this. You can’t kill a Jedi at the heart of the Republic and expect to walk away, now do you?”

“This isn’t about any of that,” her captor growled as he tried to force her to her feet. She resisted and saw the tremble in Ben’s lips as the clawed hand neared the saber’s switch. “This is a greater mission than your simple minds can comprehend. Soon, very soon, there will be balance again. You’ve felt it, old one. You’ve felt it for far longer than you know.”

The distraction let her mind find a window of clarity. Gripping her bound hands on the shard at her knees, she lurched her arms backwards. “Feel this!”

The sharp edge stabbed her captor in the chest and he let out a wrathful cry. In his moment of pain, she wretched the saber from his hand and struck out.

It happened in a long second, but the blow had been right.

Her hands were shaking as she looked down at the dead man. She couldn’t breathe as the saber fell from her hands.

The room was suddenly still and quiet. Her heartbeat filled her ears. It echoed in the silence, drumming a rapid tempo.

The darkness was gone, but still lingered on her hands.

Dropping to her knees beside her kill seemed to happen in a delay. Her body felt heavy as she landed on the carpet and sobbed.

Two lightsabers extinguishing simultaneously set time right again and she her binders popped free from her wrists.

Scrambling to her feet, she turned and was in Ben’s arms in two steps. He gripped onto her with a powerful fierceness that she’d never felt before. His heart was still pounding from battle and his skin was damp with sweat. The training bond bled with his fear for her and the tears returned.

“Shh, Rey, you’ve killed him,” Ben soothed, rubbing her back.

She frantically pulled him down into a wet kiss, forcing their mouths together with the last of her strength. He returned it, pulling her close and stroking her hair.

When he finally broke away, she rested her head against his chest and heard him murmuring her to be calm and find her centre.

The white-bearded man cleared his throat and she slowly looked at him, trying to place how she recognized him.

“I promise not to put that in the report. Not to worry.” He gave her a light smile before looking to her master. “Ben, if you could give me your communicator, I believe we should alert the council.”

“Yes, of course.” Ben shifted one arm from her to his belt. He tossed the comm to the other man and she still watched with confusion.

“Who is that, master?”

Ben was silent for a moment as the older man left the torn up room. Her eyes could finally focus on the burn marks on the floor and ceiling. They had been dangerously close to the windows; she could see the scorch marks.

“It’s Obi-Wan Kenobi, Rey,” he said, gently tugging on her to move to the wall furthest from the body. He set her down and knelt at her side, still stroking her face. His hands were cut and there was a burn mark across his tunic. He’d been that close to dying and she hadn’t felt it. Warmth pricked at her eyes again and he kissed her again, helping keep them away. She managed a hopeful look when he pulled away. “I’m sorry for not being here sooner. It was an…interesting journey.”

“What happened? Why couldn’t I reach you? Why…?”

He cut her off with a shake of his head. “I’ll tell you everything soon. Very soon, believe me. The council will be coming. Just tell them what you know and we’ll get through this.”

“But Ben…” Her bottom lip shook.

“Please, Rey.” His voice was firm and she nodded, not wanting to push him.

Obi-Wan returned and threw Ben’s comm back to him in a fluid motion. He groaned and rotated his shoulders.

“Don’t ever get old, Ben,” he sighed. “And don’t ever fight a Sith when you’re old either.”

“I don’t plan to.” He sounded like another person with those words, in her mind.

“Wait,” Rey countered. “He’s a Sith?”

Obi-Wan’s curious blue-green eyes met hers and he nodded. “Yes, Padawan. You’re the first Jedi in a generation to kill a Sith. You did very well.”

She gazed up at him and let the idea sink in. “I…I’m Rey.”

“Rey Kenobi, if I remember correctly. Hello there,” Obi-Wan winked at her. “Lovely that you took that name. It will keep the record keepers guessing.”

She had so many more questions but let them melt away. Instead, she turned to stare out the window at the morning light.

All she wanted to do was rest. She shivered at her tiredness. Ben was pacing across the room, surveying the dead man when he noticed her exhaustion.

“Go to sleep, Rey. We’ll wake you when the healers arrive.” His eyes were kind when he looked at her and she latched onto that feeling.

She weakly nodded, then let her exhaustion take over.

 

 


End file.
